A Birth of Modern Inland Golf Course Architecture:
Willie Davis and Willie Park, Jr, Plot Lines of Approach to the Hole
Cover photographs – left to right: Willie Davis, Golf (New York), vol 2 no 5 (May 1898), p. 16; Willie Park, Jr, Munsey’s Magazine (New York), vol 13 no 6 (September 1895), p. 604.
CONTENTS
A First Word About Penal Architecture: the Dunn Family
Design Lessons from the Quebec City and Montreal Courses?
The Early Penal Designs of Willie Davis
Hoylake Cops, Ditches, and Rushes
Tom Dunn’s Diverging Copy of Cops
Done with Dunn: Execrated Cops
Annus Mirabilis: Park’s 1896 Cop-Out
Copping Out at Sunningdale and Huntercombe
Park’s More Proper Course Within the Course Proper
Willie Davis Returns to Hoylake 1895
A Meeting of Men, and a Meeting of Minds
Park and Early 1890s British Cops
Willie Park Comes to America in 1895
Park Falls in Love with a Penal St Andrews Course
Park’s Generally Penal Designs in America
Davis’s Nine-Hole Vermont Design
Park, Blair, Davis and Nine More Holes for Shelburne Farms
American Inspirations for The Game of Golf
Willie Park Engaged by St Andrews in 1896
Park’s 1896 St. Andrews Design
The Davis Course for George Vanderbilt
The Davis Biltmore “Blueprint”
Willie Davis and the New Nine Holes at Newport
Willie Park and the Official Opening of the New Newport Course
The Principal’s Nose, Stuart’s Neb, and the Newport Proboscis
Appendix 1: The Fate of Davis’s 18-Hole Newport Course
Appendix 2: Davis Does Apawamis Next
Introduction
Willie Davis, who was the first golf professional to lay out golf courses in North America, and Willie Park, Jr, who would advertise himself in the early twentieth century as “the originator of the modern system of golf course design,” met during the latter’s first visit to the United States in 1895. In mid-July, they spent four days together in Newport, Rhode Island, during which they competed against each other in two well-attended, closely contested golf matches.
More importantly, they also discussed how to design and maintain inland golf courses.
As Park explained in The Game of Golf (a book written just months after his visit with Davis), the proliferation of inland golf courses in the 1890s was a new phenomenon:
Until a few years ago, a golf links at a distance from the seashore was a thing seldom seen….
[But] as the demand for golfing facilities increased, it was impossible that the old courses could accommodate the numberless enthusiasts who threw themselves heart and soul into the game, and as a natural consequence golf links have come to be laid out everywhere, very often in places which past generations of golfers would have deemed it little short of madness to attempt to transform into a links.
It has, in fact, been found possible to lay out a golf course over almost any tract of ground of sufficient extent….
I do not say that a first-class links can be made everywhere that golf can be played, but a course can always be laid out over which many enjoyable games can be got and on which a considerable amount of skill can be attained.
(Willie Park, Jr., The Game of Golf [London: Longman, Green & Company, 1896] p. 193)
Park’s 1895 visit to a country where almost every course he played, and where almost every course he laid out, was an inland course whose primary mission was to enable people new to the game to attain “a considerable amount of skill” as quickly and as efficiently as possible must have stimulated Park to reflect on the principles of inland golf course design during his four-and a-half month stay in the United States.
The meeting between Park and Davis occurred at the very end of Park’s visit, during which Park had laid out at least seven golf courses – reason enough to wonder what topics concerning golf course architecture they might have discussed.
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Furthermore, during and after Park’s visit, these two golf professionals effectively collaborated on the design and construction in Vermont of what would come to be regarded as one of the best private 18-hole golf courses in the United States, and they also seem to have discussed the Newport Golf Club’s plans to add nine new holes to Davis’s existing nine-hole course at Newport.
Although initial plans to develop the new Newport course during the 1895-96 winter were eventually deferred until the end of 1896, the nine-hole design by Davis that emerged later that year represented a significant departure from Davis’s previous design strategies. In particular, on his two-shot and three-shot holes, Davis laid out a route from tees to greens that did not require carries over cross bunkers. His new design practice was not only a departure from what he had done on virtually every golf hole he had previously designed, but it was also a complete departure from the prevailing tenets of penal golf course architectural theory that dominated all inland golf course design in the British Isles, continental Europe, and North America in the 1890s.
How had Davis come to do this?
My interest in this question is piqued by the fact that Davis’s new holes at Newport were in complete accord with new architectural ideas that Park broached in The Game of Golf.
The book was published in April of 1896, but Park had probably started writing it shortly after his return from New York to Musselburgh at the end of July 1895. Park articulated in The Game of Golf a number of ideas that would become fundamental in the modernizing strategies of early twentieth-century architects.
Is there a connection between Davis’s new architectural practices and Park’s new ideas?
Did they talk about these ideas during their time together at Newport in July of 1895?
Did Davis read Park’s 1896 book?
Is the new nine-hole course laid out by Davis at Newport in 1896-97 implicitly a collaboration with Park?
From the Links at Hoylake
The story of Willie Davis’s development as a golf course architect begins with the golf course of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club on the River Dee side of the Wirral Peninsula at Hoylake, across the River Mersey from the great port city of Liverpool (about ten miles from the golf course). Here Davis simultaneously learned the game and learned what a golf course was. This golf course may have been the only one he ever played before sailing to Canada in the spring of 1881. It was certainly the only golf course he knew thoroughly.
Figure 1 Referee, competitor and caddie before spectators in front of John Ball’s Royal Hotel at Hoylake, original clubhouse of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.
In the mid-1890s, looking back on his career, Davis recalled that before he left for Canada, he “had been in the employ of Jack Morris, of Hoylake, since the time [he] was fourteen” – that is, since late 1875 or early 1876 (W.F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of Royal Liverpool Golf Club, p. 1). Of course, before Morris accepted him as his apprentice, Davis had learned the game as a caddie, as he explained to A.J. Robertson, the editor of Golf (London):
I was much pleased to see the interesting article and photographs of Young Tom Morris and Davie Strath in a recent number of Golf.
I received my first lesson at golf on the Hoylake links from these players and have carried their clubs on several occasions.
(Golf [London], vol 11 no 288 [17 January 1896], p. 401)
Figure 2 Young Tom Morris. Tulloch, The Life of Tom Morris, p. 170.
Figure 3 Davis Strath. Tullock, The Life of Tom Morris, p. 170.
Young Tom Morris first played at Hoylake in August of 1871, joining with a Club member in a match against his first cousin Jack Morris and John Ball – proprietor of the Royal Hotel and a founder of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Ball happened to be the first cousin of Willie Davis’s mother (Liverpool Mail, 12 August 1871, p. 10).
Young Tom’s last visit to Hoylake was in August of 1875 (for he would die unexpectedly in December of that year).
And so, Davis’s first lesson at Hoylake from Young Tom could have been as early as 1871 (when Davis was not yet 10 years of age), and his last chance to caddie for Young Tom came in 1875 (when Davis was a couple of months shy of his 14th birthday).
Davis had more opportunities to caddie for Davie Strath, however, who continued to play at Hoylake after the death of his best friend Young Tom.
On the one hand, Strath had struck up a mentoring friendship with the son of hotelier John Ball: young John Ball, Jr, who was just two or three months younger than his 3rd cousin Willie Davis. Strath and John Ball, Jr, played as a team at Hoylake in July, August, and November of 1876. Perhaps it was through this 3rd cousin that Davis received opportunities to caddie for Strath.
On the other hand, Strath also competed at Hoylake in a professional tournament in August of 1877 (shortly after which his health began to fail because of tuberculosis, leading him to sail late in 1878 for Australia, where he died in January of 1879, just weeks after his arrival).
Although Davis must have played over and caddied over the Hoylake links hundreds of times, I can find no evidence that he ever played golf anywhere else before he sailed for Montreal at the end of March 1881.
Indeed, there were few other nearby golf courses where he could have played or caddied.
There was the nine-hole course of the West Lancashire Golf Club laid out at Blundellsands in 1873. Before Davis left for Montreal, it remained relatively rough and unfinished compared to the Hoylake course, but Royal Liverpool members participated in the new club’s spring and fall tournaments from the mid-1870s onward. Davis’s cousin John Ball, Jr, was the most notable Hoylake golfer who played at Blundellsands on these occasions; perhaps Davis caddied for him.
The course was described as a “little green,” and it was said to have been “gay and animated” in good weather. But as late as the mid-1880s, Horace Hutchinson observed: “Blundellsands is excellent as a relief for the surplus golfing population of Lancashire, but it does not seriously compete with its Cheshire rival, Hoylake” (Liverpool Mercury, 20 October 1879, p. 5; Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], pp. 49-50).
Going in the opposite direction, the Royal Liverpool golf professional John Morris travelled to Conway, on the north coast of Wales, in July of 1875 to lay out a 12-hole course which was ready for play the very next day. At this time, 13-year-old Davis was a caddie and would not become apprenticed to Morris for some months yet, so it is unlikely that he helped Morris with this layout.
In any event, Davis will already have been familiar with Morris’s architectural ideas since they informed the Hoylake links that Davis knew well: the golf course had been laid out literally in Davis’s front yard.
In 1861, he was born in the Green Lodge Hotel in front of which George Morris and Robert Chambers laid out the original nine-hole course in 1869. Davis was not yet 10 years old in 1871 when the Royal Liverpool Golf Club extended the original course to make it an 18-hole circuit. And when he began his apprenticeship under Jack Morris in the mid-1870s, Davis probably lived next door to this hotel in the house called Greenham Cottage, where his mother ran a boarding house in which golf course workers were known to stay in the mid-1870s. Between 1869 and 1881, a championship links was developed before his very own eyes: Davis witnessed as caddie and apprentice the creation, replacement and remodelling of various holes and the addition of many artificial hazards.
Park implied that golf course architects should reflect on how championship golf courses had gradually evolved into their present form through centuries of decisions about where putting greens, tees, and hazards should be located:
The laying out of a golf course is by no means a simple task. Great skill and judgement, and a thorough acquaintance with the game, are absolutely necessary to determine the best positions for the respective holes and teeing-grounds and the situations of the hazards.
It is a mistake to suppose that our older golf courses in their present state are the same as when first formed. The original formation of them is lost in past centuries, but we know that changes have been frequently made and they really have been the product of ages of experience and have, so to speak, been evolved in the course of time.
At every one of our historic courses, changes have been made again and again as experience dictated – bunkers have been filled up and new ones formed, holes have been shortened and lengthened, until these links have assumed their present state.
When a new course is laid out, I would strongly advise the promoters to obtain the assistance of some one experienced in such matters.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 194-95)
Over the course of twelve years, rather than centuries, Davis witnessed just such a process of evolution at Hoylake, and, through conversation with Jack Morris, he was probably privy to the architectural rationale for decisions made at Hoylake about the location of putting greens, teeing grounds, and various hazards as old holes were changed and new holes added.
Alas, as an architect, Davis was not a writer: he left no written account of his appreciation of the Hoylake design and no written account of the principles animating any of his own golf course designs. Yet we are not without resources for understanding his ideas about golf course architecture. His design principles are implicit in his design practices in the approximately twenty courses that he laid out or remodelled: from his earliest work in 1891 for the Royal Ottawa Golf Glub in Canada and for the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York to the courses he laid out between 1893 and 1897 for the Newport Golf Club and to the course he redesigned for the Apawamis Golf Club between 1899 and 1901.
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My hypothesis is that what we find in Davis’s earliest layouts in North America is a material expression of what the Hoylake links had taught him about the nature of a proper golf course and that what we find in certain of his layouts after 1895 is a material expression of what he learned from Park about new possibilities for inland golf course design.
Hoylake Born and Bred
Figure 4 Green Lodge Hotel with the Carriage Service to Birkenhead in front. Circa late 1800s. The building to the left is Greenham Cottage.
Born in the fall of 1861, Willie Davis was the son of "Inn Keeper" John Davies and "Inn Keeper's Wife" Esther Davies (née Hale) of the Green Lodge Hotel (1861 Census of England and Wales). The hotel was on the eastern end of the Hoylake common where the nine hole golf course of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club would be laid out in 1869.
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One of Esther’s jobs was to manage property associated with the hotel:
Hoylake – To be LET.
Furnished, a small COTTAGE on the Racecourse, containing one sitting room, three bedrooms, kitchen, scullery and large play ground at the front –
Apply to Mrs. Davies, Green Lodge Hotel, Hoylake ....
Liverpool Post (11 May 1861, p. 2)
Figure 5 Cover image. John Pinfold, Hoylake Racecourse and the Beginnings of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club (Bumphrey, 2002).
The racecourse in question, maintained by the Liverpool Hunt Club, was a pear shaped track 1.5 miles in length, standing between the Green Lodge Hotel and the Royal Hotel, the latter of which became the first clubhouse of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Certain features of the steeplechase course, such as ditches and inner and outer rails, would serve as golf course hazards until the end of the 1870s, when racing ceased on this racecourse.
When the advertisement above was placed in the Liverpool Post in May of 1861, Esther had an 18-month-old daughter named Eleanor and was about three months pregnant with Willie.
On both his father’s and his mother’s side, Willie’s ancestors had lived in the Hoylake area for many generations, most of them working as farmers before his mother and father entered the hostelry industry. His father John Davies (born 1834) and his mother Esther Hale (1835-1924) were married in the parish church of Birkenhead (seven miles east of Hoylake) on 5 July 1858 after banns had been read.
Esther was pregnant when they married. The couple’s son Joseph was born a month after the marriage (he was baptized 3 October 1858 and then, sadly, buried 3 November 1858 aged just 3 months). They would have four more children: Eleanor (November 1859-1931), William Frederick (baptized 1 December 1861), Sarah Hindley (born November 1864, died 22 June 1936), and Mary Elizabeth (born June 1867). Last-born Mary was what was then called a “posthumous child” – being born two months after her father John died in April of 1867.
John and Esther Davies had probably entered the hostelry business at the invitation of the latter’s uncle, John Ball (1804-1887), who had been for many years the proprietor of the Green Lodge Hotel where niece Esther and her husband John were installed as his Innkeepers shortly after their marriage. Esther’s uncle John replaced them in 1862, however, with one of his daughters (and her husband), but John and Esther Davies seem to have continued in the hostelry industry – Esther bravely doing so on her own when her husband died and she was left with four young children.
She never remarried.
Shortly after the death of her husband, we find Esther and her first cousin John Ball (son of one time Green Lodge proprietor John Ball) appearing to coordinate their applications for separate licenses to run establishments selling alcohol at consecutive train stations on the same local line – Esther at the Docks Railway Station near Birkenhead and John at the Hoylake Train Station:
John Ball, Hoylake Railway Station, was supported by [a solicitor named] Mr. Anderson who … said Mr. Ball’s was not a simple ginship but a place of call for passengers by the railway conducted in a respectable manner.
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He put in a memorial from the people of the district in favour of the application ….
Mr. Anderson also appeared for Mrs. Davies for the refreshment room of the Docks’ Station (Birkenhead end) of the same line of railway and vouched for the respectability of the applicant ….
(Liverpool Daily Post, 27 August 1869, p. 9)
Figure 6 Left to right: "John Ball, Sr (1833-1905) and John ball, Jr, (1861-1940). Circa 1890.
John Ball would become proprietor of the Royal Hotel in 1864 and would in 1869 become a founding member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, providing a room in his hotel to be used as a clubhouse. His business interests were many times more substantial and more prosperous than those of Esther, but he seems to have been supportive of his cousin Esther’s business ambitions: it is likely that “Mr. Anderson” was John Ball’s regular solicitor and that John had suggested to Esther that she should also avail herself of his services.
Yet whether these two cousins had a close personal relationship is not clear.
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Of course, their parents were siblings: John’s father (also named John Ball) was the younger brother of Esther’s mother, Esther Ball (1800-1865).
And 1st cousins John Ball and Esther Davies had boys the same age. Willie was baptized 1 December 1861 and his third-cousin John Ball, Jr, was born later that month on Christmas Eve. It is possible that the future amateur champion and the future pioneering North American golf professional became playmates.
Esther’s 1869 application for a liquor license was not granted.
Perhaps this setback was why she soon changed her focus from selling beer and alcohol to the keeping of a boarding house, acquiring Greenham Cottage East right next door to the Green Lodge Hotel (both of which still exist today). This “cottage” was a substantial semi-detached residential building – the other half being known as Greenham Cottage West.
Esther Davies would run her boarding house here for almost 40 years before acquiring a new property in Hoylake around 1900 (her new boarding house being located just two blocks away from Greenham Cottage).
Figure 7 Greenham Cottage is the building visible left of the Greenham Lodge Hotel, circa 1870.
And so, at the beginning of 1895, Greenham Cottage was the home to which Willie returned when, after fourteen years in North America, he came back to Hoylake to visit his mother and single sisters Sarah and Mary in their thriving boarding house.
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We know that employees of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club sometimes stayed at Esther Davies’ boarding house because of a sensational newspaper story from around the time that her son Willie was engaged as an apprentice under Jack Morris:
ACCIDENTALLY DROWNED AT HOYLAKE – On Saturday morning, at eleven o'clock, Peter Roberts, a fisherman, found the body of Alexander Graig, marker at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, lying on the shore at Hoylake.
The deceased was without his coat, vest, and boots, and he had evidently been drowned.
The unfortunate man lodged with Esther Davies, at Hoylake, and he retired to bed at half-past ten o'clock on Friday evening. During the night, he was heard leaving his bedroom, but, as he had been unwell, his landlady paid no attention to him.
He was 35 years of age.
An inquest was held on Monday, before Mr. Churton, coroner, on the body.
It was at first supposed that the unfortunate man committed suicide, but, although there was no evidence to show how he got into the water, the jury returned the verdict that he was "accidentally drowned."
(Liverpool Weekly Mercury, 28 October 1876, p. 4)
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Willie Davis no doubt knew this unfortunate person. I wonder if he heard the commotion during the night as Graig left the house.
Figure 8 John ("Jack") Morris, circa late 1890s.
Royal Liverpool’s golf professional Jack Morris was related by marriage to his apprentice Davis. He had married another of Willie’s cousins: Margaret Jane Smith, daughter of Esther Ball – a sibling of Royal Liverpool founder John Ball (1834-1905) and a first cousin of Willie’s mother. (Morris’s wife was a first cousin of amateur champion John Ball, Jr).
As Morris’s apprentice, Willie learned how to make wooden clubheads on a lathe, how to splice wooden and iron clubheads to persimmon shafts, how to apply leather grips to shafts, how to replace the horn insets on the face of wooden clubs, how to make and repair gutta percha golf balls, and so on. In the fulness of time, Davis would so excel at club making that in 1900, it was reported that he was “doing a large business in making clubs, not only for [his Apawamis Golf Club] members, but also for others in all parts of the country” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle [New York], 27 January 1900, p. 14).
He would also have become a golf instructor. The British tradition of teaching golf required instructors to play a round of golf with pupils, the members remunerating the golf professional for this work by each 9-hole or 18-hole round played.
As an instructor at Royal Liverpool, Willie Davis would long be remembered by club members as having been particularly supportive and encouraging of the children taking up the game.
One of the young boys he instructed at Royal Liverpool was Harold Hilton (who was Willie’s junior by about six years. Hilton would win both the British Amateur Championship and the British Open Championship in the late 1890s and early 1900s, and in 1911 he would come to America and win the US Amateur Championship. Moreover, he would do so at the Apawamis Golf Club on a course laid out ten years before by his old chum Willie Davis. Hilton remains one of the most revered of English amateur golfers. When Willie Davis died unexpectedly in 1902, Hilton wrote two articles reminiscing about his acquaintance with Davis, who was called “Billy” by his friends at Royal Liverpool.
Figure 9 Harold Hilton. 1890s.
Hilton was especially fond of telling how Billy Davis helped him with a rite of passage for the Hoylake schoolboys.
On their way home from school, boys dared each other to hit a golf ball over the back yard of an imposing house called Gothic Lodge. In those days, schoolboys were lucky to own a single golf ball and so they were determined never to lose one. If their ball went into bushes or long grass, they hunted until they found it. The increased likelihood of losing a ball in the bushes and grass in the back yard of Gothic Lodge was indirectly indicated by a sign nailed to a rain barrel: “Beware of the dog!” For fear of this dog, boys were afraid to retrieve golf balls that fell into the backyard.
Eight-year-old Hilton was more terrified of dogs than most. If his ball were not carry the back yard, he knew it would be lost, and “in those days,” he recalled, “golf balls were … a very scarce commodity amongst the youths of Hoylake” (Sporting Chronicle, 25 February 1902, p. 4).
One day, however, accompanied by Billy Davis, Hilton was encouraged by the older boy to have a go at the famous shot:
I remember well the envy with which my soul was filled on witnessing the older boys successfully accomplish what appeared to me then to be a prodigious feat, and it was my old friend Willie Davis who eventually persuaded me to attempt it.
Not having quite the same fear of the canine terror as I had, he promised to recover the ball for me if I failed, and I shall never forget the feeling of gratified ambition when success followed my initial effort.
(Sporting Chronicle, 25 February 1902, p. 4).
Hilton’s memories of his “old friend Willie Davis” were all fond ones.
Davis’s unique place in the history of the game was settled when the Montreal Golf Club decided in 1880 that the time had come for the Club to hire a golf professional: “In 1880, Captain [Alexander] Dennistoun announced that he had communicated with Mr. D.D. Sidey, then in Scotland, with regard to obtaining the services of a professional player” (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21). Early in 1881, Davis would become the first golf professional hired as such by a North American golf club.
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Davis says that it was with D.D. Sidey’s brother that he negotiated his original contract:
In March 1881, I learned that the Royal Montreal Golf Club was looking for a professional and greenkeeper.
I immediately sent an application to Mr. John G. Sidey in Edinburgh for the position, giving my employer [Jack Morris] as reference.
After some correspondence, I was informed that out of fourteen applicants, I was chosen.
(William F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of Royal Liverpool Golf club)
Davis agreed to arrive “as early in April as may be required” (Davis’s handwritten contract, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club).
In 1881, still six months short of his 20th birthday, Willie sailed at the end of March from Liverpool to Montreal on Canada’s Beaver Line, his second-class ticket having been being paid for by the Montreal Golf Club. By mid-April, it was reported that he had begun instructing Club members (that is, playing with them on the golf course).
Golf was new to Canada (and it was not at that time played in the United States) so only certain immigrants from Scotland and England had much an idea of how to swing a golf club. Hiring Willie, the Club hoped that his expert instruction would convert some of its purely social members into active golfing members, for only about 25 of the Montreal members were playing golf in 1881.
A First Word About Penal Architecture: the Dunn Family
As we shall see, every golf course that Davis laid out between leaving England in the spring of 1881 and returning for a visit to England and Scotland at the beginning of 1895 displayed the principles of penal golf course architecture. Curiously, however, penal design theory was developed only after Davis left Britain. And Willie Dunn, Jr (1864-1952), was the first adherent of this theory to deploy its principles in North America when he added artificial hazards to the existing 12-hole course at Shinnecock Hills almost as soon as he arrived at the Club in May of 1893.
How had Davis come to design courses according to an architectural philosophy of which he was unaware?
Figure 10 Tom Dunn, circa 1880s.
Penal golf course architecture is associated with the design work of Scottish golf professional Tom Dunn (1849-1902), often called “the father of penal golf course design.” He was a leading figure in laying out inland golf courses far from the traditional home of golf on seaside links land. He was particularly instrumental in the building of new golf courses around London as the popularity of golf spread from Scotland to England in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
Dunn’s designs were distinguished by his tendency to dig across the entire width of a fairway a trench perpendicular to the line of play, heaping the earth from the trench into a wall on the green side of the trench and filling the trench with sand.
Any hazard spanning the width of a fairway was generally called a “cross bunker,” with Dunn’s version of the cross bunker being called a turf dyke or cop bunker.
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Dunn’s cop bunker was the simplest and most economical way for him to introduce hazards onto the generally featureless land where he was asked to build the majority of his inland golf courses:
Tom Dunn's courses were rudimentary given the lack of earth moving equipment available at that time.
His standard design feature was to lay out a ditch or bunker on the near side of the green, often right across the course, which had to be carried from the tee.
It was the same kind of carry for the second shot, and if the player had to hack out of the first bunker, the next hazard was in reach.
(Famous North Berwick Golfers http://www.northberwick.org.uk/dunn.html).
Figure 11 Willie Dunn, Jr, 1894.
One of Tom Dunn’s apprentices was his much younger brother Willie Dunn, Jr, with whom he built a golf course at Biarritz in 1889.
As we know, however, the younger Dunn came to the United States in the spring of 1893 to work as golf professional at Shinnecock Hills.
Immediately constructed at Shinnecock Hills in front of the green on what was Willie Davis’s 2nd hole in 1891, but which became John Cuthbert’s 5th hole in 1892, was one of Dunn’s most famous cop bunkers. Seen below, it was known as “The Bastion Bunker” (although it was also briefly known as the “Zigzag Bunker”).
Figure 12 An example of a Willie Dunn cross bunker at Shinnecock Hills: "The Bastion" or "Zigzag Bunker." Illustrated American, 27 October 1894, p. 1029.
After Dunn added six holes in the spring of 1895 to make Shinnecock Hills an 18-hole layout, the Dunn family’s cop bunker became a staple feature of the course, as Garden Smith observed in 1898: “The embankment of the Long Island Railway (which is crossed four times) and artificial cop bunkers are the principal difficulties of the course” (Garden Smith, The World of Golf [London: A.D. Innes & Co, 1898], p. 259).
Willie Dunn immediately began designing golf courses for other golf clubs and for wealthy members of the American leisured class. Everywhere he went across the United States and Canada in the 1890s and early 1900s, he laid out courses according to the principles of penal design theory and effectively introduced throughout North America the Dunn family’s cop bunker as the default cross bunker for land without natural hazards. Seen below are two of the cop bunkers on the private course that he laid out in 1895 for William Bayard Cutting at Islip, Long Island, New York.
Figure 13 Two of Willie Dunn's cop-bunkers at the Westbrook Golf Club, Long Island, New York, circa 1895.
Cop bunkers were intended to prevent a player caught within one from advancing the ball very far – if at all. Exemplifying the main precept of penal golf course architecture, the cop bunker was designed to punish golfers who could not get the ball into the air to get over it.
Penal design theory emerged from the general conviction, at a time when championship golf was almost exclusively decided by match play, that it was unfair on a two-shot hole, for instance, to allow players first to top a drive then to top a fairway shot and yet still roll the ball onto the putting green with two bad shots, thereby having a chance to be “level” with the player who had reached the green with two perfect shots.
In 1896, Willie Park, Jr, gave voice to the widespread disdain for such holes by referring to them as “what has not inaptly been termed ‘levellers’ – that is to say, the ball can be driven on the green in two strokes by anybody” (Willie Park, The Game of Golf [London: Longman, Green and Co., 1896], p. 200).
And so, penal golf course architects made sure to arrange for each hole at least one hazard stretching across the entire width of the fairway: a ditch, gully, creek or small pond might serve just as well as a cop bunker, and so might a wooden fence, stone wall, road or railroad. (Note that since none of these obstacles was purpose-built for golf, they were all regarded as equally “natural” hazards.) When “nature” failed to provide a fairway-wide obstacle, the Dunns built a cop-bunker – one on a one-shot hole, two on a two-shot hole, and three on a three-shot hole – to punish the player for each shot that failed to get into the air.
In the 1890s and early 1900s, a person playing a golf course for the first time could tell the par of any hole by counting the number of cross bunkers on it: par equals the number of cross bunkers plus two strokes for putts.
By the late 1890s, because of Dunn’s influence, building a golf course in North America according to any other philosophy than that of “penal” design theory was not easily conceivable. For instance, in his advice on how to build a golf course in his 1898 book Golf, Garden G. Smith writes as though “penal” design is the only design possible:
Supposing a hole be 250 yards in length measured from the teeing-ground, there should be a hazard of some sort extending right across the line of the hole, about 100 or 130 yards from the tee.
Beyond this the ground should be good; but, guarding the hole again, and some 30 or 40 yards in front of it, there should be another hazard which the player would have to carry before reaching the putting-green.
(Garden G. Smith, Golf [New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co, 1898], p. 10)
Similarly, in the 1897 second edition of Wright & Ditson’s Guide to Golf in America, there was a new section on how to build a golf course, and in it we see the same penal assumptions. First, golfers must always be required to carry the golf ball over hazards: “the hazard to be surpassed … should be sometimes near the teeing-ground and sometimes at nearly a full drive’s distance from it”; but “there should be always some hazard or bunker to trap a poorly played drive.” The Guide explains that “where nature, by some oversight, has forgotten to provide hazards or bunkers, they should be built by man.” The kind of obstacles recommended shocks a modern golfer: one option was “wooden hurdles with sloping sides” (a problem being that the obstacle does not always work, for “the ball often strikes them and bounds over on the other side”); another option was “building hedges of branches, such as are used in hurdles of steeplechasing” (the problem being that “the ball is apt to be lost in them or creep into such a nook as to be unplayable”). And so, the Dunn family’s cop bunkers were preferred:
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​The best [hazards] are made by building a pile of earth work, about waist high and with sloping sides….
The trench behind the mound should be filled with loose sand, if possible, as … it is less unpleasant to play a ball out of sand than out of the mud that is sure to collect in such a place in wet weather.
This bunker may be either in a straight line across the course, or in a zig-zag pattern like the lines of a fortification.
(Guide to Golf in America, Wright and Ditson, 2nd ed. 1897, pp. 29-35).
Similarly, in “Bunker Building on American Links,” an anonymously written newspaper article widely published in 1901, we see how standard the Dunns’ version of penal golf course architecture had become:
Take a 150-yard hole …. If there are no natural hazards, it is advisable to place two cop bunkers 110 yards from the tee, side by side clear across the course. About one-fourth of the bunker in front should overlap one-fourth of the other, leaving a path [for golfers] running sideways, and not straight for the hole, to prevent balls rolling through.
Figure 14 The 8th hole at the Flushing Country Club, Long Island, New York, designed in 1901 by John Duncan Dunn (a nephew of Tom and Willie Dunn) and Walter J. Travis. Note the pathways to allow golfers through the cop bunkers. Golf (New York), vol 9 no 1 (July 1902), p. 11.
Each of these bunkers should cover one-half of the width of the course.
The trap should be twenty feet wide and two and one-half feet deep, while the height of the cop should be three feet….
For a hole 340 yards long, the theoretical arrangement of artificial hazards would be:
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Place two bunkers two feet deep, end for end eight[y] yards from the tee, with cops eighteen inches high to catch topped or foozled drives….
For variety, and in order to add to the picturesqueness of the course, mounds [turf dykes, instead of cop bunkers] are sometimes erected to guard the green. They should be placed 285 yards from the tee, and built about six or eight feet in height, twelve feet wide, and extending almost across the course. The end of one mound should overlap the other with a patch between, running sideways [for golfers to walk through] ….
The player who can consistently negotiate a 500-yard hole laid out as follows in anything like bogey figures should make a dangerous opponent:
Build a cop in two sections about three to five feet high, with a shallow bunker in front, extending across the course about fifty yards from the tee….
About 240 yards from the tee, it would be advisable to place a cop bunker twenty feet wide, three feet deep, and as long almost as the width of the course will permit. This bunker should be built in the shape of a half moon and have two paths running through it [for golfers] ….
Within fifty yards of the hole, an ordinary cop-bunker should be placed clear across the course to protect the green.
(Inter Ocean [Chicago], 19 May 1901, p. 49)
We shall find that Willie Davis laid out holes at Shinnecock Hills in this way in 1891, yet Willie Dunn would not bring these design principles to north America until 1893, and Tom Dunn himself said that he did not invent his famous cop bunker until 1890, when, “in laying out links … at Walton-on-Thames, he was compelled to invent a new kind of ‘hazard’” (Bournemouth Guardian, 1 December 1894, p. 3).
Completely unaware of what Tom Dunn was doing, Willie Davis built his own version of a cop bunker at Shinnecock Hills in the summer of 1891. Davis also used bushes as cross hazards on holes at Shinnecock Hills just as Dunn was using gorse bushes as cross hazards on various golf courses around London in the early 1890s. Furthermore, Davis placed his cross hazards according to precisely the same principles that the Dunn brothers demonstrated: a cross hazard for the drive, and a cross hazard for the second shot.
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Since, as mentioned above, Davis had not returned to Britain since he left Hoylake for Montreal in the spring of 1881 and so in 1891 had not encountered any of the inland golf courses laid out by Tom Dunn, one wonders how he came to duplicate Dunn’s ideas.
My hypothesis is that Davis deployed as his principles of golf course design what he was able to define by contemplating the design principles implicit in the layout of the Hoylake course that he knew so well.
And quite remarkably, as we shall see, Tom Dunn derived the most characteristic aspect of his own inland golf course design strategies from his attention to a distinctive feature of the Hoylake layout.
Davis’s apparent duplication of Dunn’s ideas probably derives from their common understanding and appreciation of certain of Hoylake’s architectural virtues.
Design Lessons from the Quebec City and Montreal Courses?
After Davis left Hoylake, the only golf courses that he played during the next 12 years were the nine-hole course on Fletcher’s Field in Montreal, the city where Davis lived from the spring of 1881 to the winter of 1893, and the 12-hole course on Cove Fields at Quebec, where Davis played several intensely competitive exhibition matches between 1881 and 1892.
The holes on these courses were generally short, but they had the reputation of being difficult: it turns out that the courses in Quebec City and Montreal were each laid out according to principles of penal design that broadly anticipated Dunn’s principles.
What roles might these two early Canadian layouts have played in Davis’s development as a golf course architect?
Quebec City's Cove Fields
The original course of the Quebec Golf Club was laid out sometime between the late 1860s and the early 1870s on Cove Fields by a visiting businessman from Scotland: James Hunter (1848 86).
Figure 15 Undated photograph of Elizabeth Morris, circa early 1870s.
At the time, Hunter was in the third year of his engagement to Old Tom Morris’s daughter Elizabeth (1852-98).
From early childhood, Hunter had been the best friend of Young Tom Morris (beside whom Hunter is buried at St. Andrews). And from early childhood, they were both enthusiastic golfers.
The boys became playmates a few years after Old Tom arrived at Prestwick to lay out a 12 hole course in 1851, the year of Young Tom’s birth.
In Prestwick, Old Tom and his growing family lived in a house across the road from the Red Lion Inn, which was owned by James’s parents William Hunter and Elizabeth Gray.
On 2 July 1851, the Red Lion had become the birthplace of the Prestwick Golf Club.
From 1851 until Old Tom returned to St. Andrews in 1864, the Morris children and the Hunter children virtually shared their two homes, and so, James Hunter and Elizabeth Morris knew each other very well – virtually from the latter’s birth in 1852.
In front of a full array of family and friends, these childhood friends were married at St. Andrews in February of 1875.
Figure 16 At Prestwick in 1863, Old Tom Morris addresses the ball while his apprentice Charles Hunter (holding a golf club in his right hand) stands behind his own ball and watches.
James’s first cousin, Charles Hunter, would apprentice at Prestwick under Old Tom and would become Prestwick’s head pro in the mid-1860s, while James himself became an accomplished amateur golfer by the late 1860s.
He completed in the 1870 Open Championship at Prestwick won by Young Tom (and he would compete in many more); he played against Old Tom in a much publicized match to open the Glasgow Golf Club in 1870 (each was paired with one of the club’s leading players in this contest on a new course laid out by Charles Hunter); he won the club championship of his St. Nicholas Golf Club at Prestwick in 1871 with a record shattering two-round score; he partnered Young Tom in an 1871 exhibition match at Musselburgh against two top professionals, Bob Ferguson and David Park (the latter being a brother of both Willie Park, Sr, who would win the Open Championship four times, and of Mungo Park, who would win it once).
When Old Tom and family moved back to St. Andrews in the mid-1860s, James Hunter became a frequent visitor to their home and the Morris family kept track of his scores on the Old Course, on which he occasionally scored in the low 80s – excellent scores given that the first Open winner at St. Andrews to break 80 in any round was eventual five-time winner of the Open Championship, J.H. Taylor, in 1895.
And so, by the time he helped to organize a golf club in Quebec City in 1874, James Hunter was familiar with some of the best golf courses in Scotland. Yet just when he first played golf in Quebec is not clear.
James Hunter came to Canada for the first time in 1863 or 1864 when he was in his mid-teens:
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James left Ayr Academy at the age of thirteen and entered the offices of his father’s cousin in Ayr. The Hunter business was timber and James made an early and precocious start in it.
At the age of fifteen, he made the first of his travels to the New World. As a purchasing agent for Stewart of London, a company of timber importers, he went to Canada where he learned the timber business living in various port cities.
In 1869, James left Greenock [Scotland] for Darien in Georgia, USA, where he would buy standing timber, arranging its lumbering and shipping back to Britain for sale and distribution.
(David Malcolm and Peter E. Crabtree, Tom Morris of St. Andrews: The Colossus of Golf, 1821-1908 [Edinburgh: Glengarden Press, 2008; ebook edition 2011], n.p.)
In 1870, when he was just 22, Hunter started his own company. He was soon a successful entrepreneur. He prospered such that “by 1885, James Hunter was counted among the wealthiest men in the [American] Southeast” (Alabama Seaport: the Official Magazine of the Alabama Port Authority, vol 1 [2022], p. 31). He was welcomed socially into the business circles of every city where he did business: Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Hamburg, Darien (Georgia), Mobile (Alabama), and, of course, Quebec City.
When he died prematurely in 1886 (not yet 38) of suspected heart disease in Mobile, Alabama, he was “reported to be worth nearly half a million dollars” – equivalent today to about $17,000,000 (Times-Picayune [New Orleans, Louisiana], 2 February 1886, p. 2). The business community, of course, felt his loss:
He owned 100,000 acres of timbered lands in Washington, Monroe and Choctaw counties in this State [Alabama] ….
He was a man that had done a great deal for Mobile: [he] was one of the largest timber and lumber exporters on the coast, carrying on an extensive business between this and foreign ports….
He was a man of unusual business tact, handled large investments, and was a successful financier.
(Times-Picayune [New Orleans, Louisiana], 2 February 1886, p. 2).
And people liked him. In Mobile, “he had many friends and was well liked by everyone with whom he came in contact”; “his numerous friends deeply deplore[d] his sudden and sad death” (The Times-Picayune [New Orleans, Louisiana], 2 February 1886, p. 2; Times-Democrat [New Orleans, Louisiana], 2 February 1886, p. 2). He had left Darien, Georgia, for Mobile about six years earlier: “the news of his death produced a sad impression on his many friends in Darien” and “caused deep and general regret” (Atlanta Constitution [Georgia], 7 February 1886, p. 6; Savannah Morning News [Georgia], 6 February 1886, p. 2). In Ayrshire, where he was born, and at St. Andrews, where his wife and family lived, it was said that “Mr. Hunter, who was in a well doing way, was a frank, fine fellow” (Dundee Advertiser, 10 February 1886, p. 7; Ayrshire Post, 12 February 1886, p. 4). The editor of the gentleman’s outdoor magazine Field commended “his geniality of temperament and unfailing self-command under the most adverse circumstances” (Field [London, England], 13 February 1886, p. 193).
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Hunter was also remembered in Scotland as a golfer: “Mr. Hunter was well known on St. Andrews Links and was a crack golfer” (Fifeshire Journal, 4 February 1886, p. 2). The Glasgow News observed:
Mr. Hunter … was … to the very fore as a golfer.
His round was 90, or thereabouts, oftener a good deal under than much over it, even in matches of excitement, on which there was a good deal [depending] besides the honour of the score [wagers presumably].
He had a good style and was sure of foot at all points of the game.
(Glasgow News, cited in the Dundee Advertiser, 10 February 1886, p. 7)
But however many times James Hunter may have been to Quebec City on business in the 1860s and early 1870s, his most important visit is usually said to have been in 1874, and the legacy of that visit concerned not business but the royal and ancient game of golf.
A correspondent signed “F” (describing himself “as a lover of the royal and ancient game of golf”) wrote to the editor of Field on 5 November 1875 to describe the development of golf in Quebec City: “In July last [1874], a smouldering enthusiasm was rekindled by the appearance amongst us of an accomplished golfer and we at once organized the Quebec Golf Club” (Field, vol 41 no 1195 [20 November 1875], p. 588). “F” was presumably John Jackman Foote (1832 1897), proprietor of Quebec City’s Morning Chronicle and an early member of the Quebec Golf Club, and he was no doubt referring to James Hunter.
In 1874, we find “James Hunter, Glasgow,” recorded as arriving at Quebec City’s Albion Hotel in mid-May, and we then find “James Hunter” leaving Quebec on July 21st on the S.S. Miramichi “for Pictou and way ports” (Montreal Chronicle and Commercial and Shipping Gazette, 15 May 1874, p. 3; Daily Witness [Montreal], 22 July1874, p. 3). This timeline accords with Foote’s statement that smouldering enthusiasm for golf in Quebec City was rekindled in July of 1874.
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Hunter had brought his golf clubs with him for his visit to Quebec in 1874. Perhaps he had done so on his earlier visits, too, for it is quite likely that a fellow member of Prestwick’s St. Nicholas Golf Club – William Doleman (1839-1918) – had told him several years before that golf could be played on the Plains of Abraham.
Figure 17 William Doleman, Glasgow Golf Club, 1880.
By the late 1860s, Doleman had become one of Hunter’s regular playing partners on the Prestwick links. Indeed, Doleman was playing with Hunter when the latter set the course record in 1871. Knowing that Hunter regularly visited Quebec City in connection with his business concerns, Doleman no doubt told him that he had set up a provisional course for himself on Cove Fields in the late 1850s when his ship, the Cambria, was docked at Quebec City.
According to “a former golf correspondent of The Glasgow Herald,” who wrote an article commemorating the 100th anniversary of Doleman’s birth (the writer described Doleman as his “mentor in all things pertaining to golf”), Doleman had been to Quebec in 1858:
In 1854, he was on board a vessel at Odessa when the British Fleet were bombarding the town [during the Crimean War].
Four years later [1858], he sailed as a seaman on the ship Cambria (398 tons register) to Quebec and Montreal, and from a well-preserved certificate, I note that his “character for ability” and “character for conduct” were marked “V.G.”
(Glasgow Herald, 16 September 1938, p. 12).
According to T.M. Hutchison, however, who was a well-known Montreal golfer and golf historian (he knew one of Doleman’s sons), the year of Doleman’s visit was 1859, or perhaps 1860 (see Gazette [Montreal], 16 April 1932, p. 12 and 2 July 1938, p. 6).
In those days, the Cambria, carrying general cargo, made two trips each year from Glasgow to Quebec and Montreal and back. It would load cargo in Glasgow during March and April and arrive in Quebec in May, spending several days or weeks at Quebec and Montreal unloading cargo to consignees, and it would then spend days or weeks receiving new cargo at Montreal and Quebec before sailing back to Glasgow. And so, on a trip to Quebec, Doleman could have played golf on Cove Fields in the spring and/or fall, and he could have done so during the days or weeks when the Cambria was unloading and/or loading cargo in Quebec City.
Doleman soon gave up life as a sailor and took up residence in Glasgow, where he became a van driver in the early 1860s. In the mid-1860s, when Doleman won a prestigious tournament on the Montrose Links (a tournament that included professionals Old Tom Morris, James Anderson, and Bob Kirk), it was revealed to surprised newspaper readers that he “drives a baker’s van in Glasgow every day” (Golfer’s Yearbook for 1866, ed. Robert Howie Smith (Ayr, Scotland: Smith & Grant, 1867), p. 72). He had also driven a milk cart. And afterwards, he bought a horse and cab to serve travellers going to and from the train station, work that he soon parlayed into ownership of a cab hire company.
As a member of Prestwick’s St. Nicholas Golf Club in the late1860s and early 1870s (when nearby Glasgow did not yet have its own golf club), Doleman pursued golf with a passion, becoming in 1865 the first amateur player to enter the Open Championship. He went on to post the lowest score by an amateur every year from 1865 to 1872. Becoming a member of the revived Glasgow Golf Club in the mid-1870s, he also posted the lowest score by an amateur in the Open Championships of 1875 and 1884. His best finishes in the overall standings were third, f ifth (twice), sixth (twice), and seventh. In 1872, only professionals Young Tom Morris and Davie Strath beat him. In an exhibition match at the 1876 Open championship at St Andrews, Doleman played against the 1874 champion Mungo Park and beat him by one hole (Field, vol 48 no 1241 [7 October 1876], p. 422). He would play in the British Amateur Championship until 1912, when he was seventy-three years of age. When he died in 1918, Field described him as “the finest amateur golfer of his day” (cited in The Transcript-Telegram [Holyoke, Massachusetts], 12 August 1918, p. 5).
In the 1870s and 1880s, mind you, James Hunter frequently defeated his good friend Doleman in match play.
Regarding Hunter’s role in organizing a golf club in Quebec City, F.T. Sharp wrote the following for Golf (New York) in 1898:
In [1874] … a Mr. Hunter, of Glasgow, who was visiting the city, and who had brought his clubs with him, initiated a few choice spirits into the mysteries of the game….
Mr. C. Farquharson Smith … Mr. James Stevenson … Mr. H. Chaloner Smith and Mr. H. Stanley Smith comprised the chosen band, and they were soon joined by Mr. P. McNaughton, Mr. Joseph Roberts, Mr. A. Nichol and Mr. W.A. Griffith.
These fine gentlemen, with a few others, started the club by laying out a short links of nine holes on the Cove Fields, facing the St. Lawrence River and forming part of the original battlefield of the Plains of Abraham.
(Golf [New York]. Vol 2 no 5 [May 1898], p. 3)
Note that the first four people that Hunter introduced to golf were bankers and timber merchants. Charles Farquharson Smith (1828-83), from Aberdeen, was a manager of the British Bank of North America, and James Stevenson (1813-1894), from Leith, was the cashier of the Quebec Bank (years before, he had briefly succeeded his father as timber agent for Quebec and Ontario but was soon hired by the Bank of Montreal to work in Bytown [Ottawa] to tend to the f inancial needs of lumber merchants). Of Stevenson, after whom a golf hole on Cove Fields would be named, it was said that “his first connection with [golf] began in his boyhood’s days at Leith and was revived in his old age” (Gazette [Montreal], 11 December 1894, p. 5). Brothers H. Chaloner Smith and Henry Stanley Smith worked for two different timber companies in Quebec City. And Peter McNaughton was an important figure in yet another timber company operating in Quebec, the Glasgow firm A. Gilmour and Company.
Hunter’s acquaintance with these bankers and fellow timber merchants no doubt dated from well before 1874. Indeed, he met many of them shortly after his mid-1860s arrival in Quebec City as an agent for a London timber company.
And so, although Foote says that Hunter’s influence on golf in Quebec City dates from July of 1874, it is perhaps not surprising to find that there were others in the city who later insisted that Hunter had played golf on Cove Fields well before 1874:
Quebec’s golf links form part of the historic battleground, the Plains of Abraham….
The Quebec Club was founded in 1874, but there is no doubt in the minds of old curlers that the game was played many years previously by a relative of Old Tom Morris, one Mr. Hunter, who with several companions negotiated the somewhat difficult links on the Plains.
(Herald [Montreal], 10 February 1899, p. 6)
In the late 1890s, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Quebec Golf Club at that time, W.C.J. Hall, made a similar claim:
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The Montreal and Quebec Clubs were founded almost at the same time, but Montreal a little sooner than Quebec, 1873 and 1874, respectively.
We [in Quebec] have reason to believe the game was played here some time previous to the above dates by Mr. Hunter of Glasgow, a relative of Old Tom Morris; furthermore, not by Mr. Hunter alone, but several others.
(Golf [London], 10 February 1899, p. 426)
And there was an article in the Montreal Herald in 1896 that once again implied that Hunter had played golf at Quebec before 1874 – that is, before either the Quebec Golf Club or the Royal Montreal Golf Club was formed:
The Quebec Golf Club and the Royal Montreal Golf Club both date from 1874, the seniority of the Royal Montreal Golf Club not being disputed by the Quebec Club.
But golf in Canada would seem to have received its first impetus in Quebec following the visit to that city of a Mr. Hunter, of Glasgow, who, bringing his clubs with him, as I have no doubt he brought his toilet necessaries, his medicine chest, or any other indispensable article of equipment, was first to drive a golf ball over the Cove Fields – part of the Plains of Abraham – the now famous links of the Quebec Golf Club.
(Herald [Montreal], 23 November 1896, p. 5)
Foote had indicated in 1875 that there was a “smouldering enthusiasm” for golf before Hunter’s visit in July of 1874, but he did not indicate that this enthusiasm was due to earlier visits by Hunter. But “An Old Member, Quebec Golf Club,” wrote to the editor of Golf (London) in 1897 to point to a period “nearly thirty years” earlier as the time when Hunter laid out the Cove Fields course: “The Quebec Club was instituted and the links selected and laid out originally by the late Mr. Farquharson Smith and the late Mr. Hunter, son-in-law of Tom Morris, nearly thirty years ago” – that is, in the late 1860s (Golf [London], vol 14 no 361 [11 June 1897], p. 275).
But whether it was just a year after he laid out a course on Cove Fields, or several years after he had done so, James Hunter returned to Quebec City in 1875 (now married and accompanied by his wife) and played in the Club’s first handicap championship tournament. Hunter played as a scratch player, conceding twenty or more strokes to the other competitors:
“Golf” in Canada
We are glad to see this game gaining ground in Canada.
Already we have two clubs – one in Montreal and one in Quebec….
In Quebec, they play on the “Cove Fields” – a beautiful “Links” – where there are twelve holes.
On Saturday last, the club played for their handicap medal.
The play, which was good, resulted in the following scores:
James Hunter 64 strokes (scratch) 64
John Tudor 89 strokes, with 25 off 64
P. McNaughton 85 strokes, with 20 off 65
A. Nichol 86 strokes, with 20 0ff 66
C.F. Smith 87 strokes, with 25 off 67
The “tie” for the medal was played off on the following Monday and resulted in favor of Mr. Hunter.
We trust this notice will be the means of bringing out more players who may not yet know the existence of the game of “golf” in Canada.
(Gazette [Montreal], 21 October 1875, p. 3)
Note that in the 1870s, handicaps were calculated by reference to the average score of a golf club’s best player, who was designated its scratch player (regardless of what his average score happened to be or how it compared to the best scores of players at other clubs). We can see that the handicaps calculated for the competition above were extraordinarily accurate, producing very close net scores. One might suppose that Hunter and fellow Club members had played the Quebec course sufficiently frequently during the 1875 season for the club’s handicap committee to have a good number of scorecards from which to make its quite accurate calculations.
Recall that Sharp said in 1898 that the “fine gentlemen” who first played golf in 1874 “started the club by laying out a short links of nine holes on the Cove Fields” (Golf [New York], vol 2 no 5 [May 1898], p. 3). It is certainly possible that Hunter originally laid out a nine-hole course (whether in 1874 or sometime before this). And then, back in Quebec City in 1875 and playing golf on Cove Fields once again, Hunter may have expanded his nine-hole course to 12 holes. Alternatively, the course may have had 12 holes from the beginning – just like the Prestwick Links where Hunter had learned his golf and where the first Open championship was held in 1860.
After his championship win in 1875, Hunter is not recorded as participating in any more Club competitions, but he certainly maintained a connection to the Quebec Golf Club well after this date.
In 1877, for instance, he represented Quebec in what has since become the oldest amateur competition in the world, the contest for the Amateur Gold Medal at Leven, Scotland:
The annual competition on the Leven Links for the amateur Gold Medal, which is open to all members of invited clubs, took place on Saturday.
This competition has now attained a considerable importance and is looked forward to with not a little interest, which is yearly on the increase.
Not only local players, but representatives from Edinburgh, Elie, Musselburgh, St. Andrews, and other golfing centres take part, and this year the muster was fair and pretty well divided among the various clubs….
Fifteen couples entered and these were dispatched by … the secretary of the Innerleven Club in the following order: … James Hunter (Quebec) and Capt. [R] Jackson (Royal and Ancient St. Andrews) ….
(Field [London, England], 18 August 1877, p. 201)
Hunter (who finished the competition tied 12th) was presumably the first member of the Quebec Colf Club to represent it internationally.
In 1880, he again represented the Club internationally – this time in England in a prestigious tournament held at the Alnmouth Golf Club in Northumberland. The significant prize money on offer attracted the top professionals, but since the competition was “open,” the quality of the professional players entered in the tournament also attracted leading amateur players Hunter and Doleman:
Competition at Alnmouth –
This event, under the auspices of the Alnmouth Golf Club, took place yesterday over the beautiful course which runs along the Isla shore.
As the competition was open to all golfers, it attracted all the best professional players and some well-known amateurs….
It excited not a little interest among visitors resident here in summer.
The match consisted of four rounds of the green, making 36 holes.
The principal interest was concentrated in Bob Ferguson and Jamie Anderson, the [Open] champion and ex-champion, neither of whom, however, distinguished themselves.
Bob Martin, St. Andrews, came in first, his rounds being 43, 42, 41, 42 – total 168; Mr. William Doleman, of Glasgow, amateur, 42, 44, 44, 40 – 170; Jamie Anderson, St. Andrews, 42, 43, 44, 42 – 171; Bob Ferguson, Musselburgh, 43, 40, 46, 45 – 174; B. Sayers, Leith, 177; Mungo Park, Alnmouth, 182; Mr. James Hunter, amateur, Quebec Golf Club, 183; Willie Park, Musselburgh, 184; the veteran Tom Morris, 188; [J.O.] F. Morris, 188.
An interesting match took place [afterwards] between Mr. Hunter and Mr. Doleman, the only two amateurs, who had distinguished themselves, and resulted in Mr. Hunter, the representative of Canada, defeating his opponent by four holes. (Aberdeen Free Press, 10 September 1880, p. 6, emphasis added)
Although Hunter’s work for long periods in the golf desserts of Georgia and Alabama severely restricted his opportunities to play golf, he continued to play golf when he could and performed at a high level in tournaments and exhibition matches whenever he returned to Scotland and England. Since he had taken his golf clubs to Quebec City in the late 1860s and early 1870s, one might presume that he had also taken them with him to the American South, although no reports of his having laid out golf courses there have emerged.
In 1883, on the Hoylake links of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club (where he would soon become a member), Hunter finished second in a competition among 78 top amateurs representing clubs from across Scotland and England:
The autumn meeting of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club commenced yesterday at Hoylake, when 39 couples started to compete for the Dowie Cup and Hall-Blythe Golf Medal.
Figure 18 John Ball, Jr., circa 1895.
Figure 19 Willie Fernie, circa 1883.
Figure 20 Jack Simpson (1859-1895), undated.
Figure 21 Willie Campbell (1862-1900), circa 1890.
Favoured by excellent weather, it was anticipated that good scores would be made, as several of the leading Scotch and English amateurs were present.
The crack English player, John Ball, Tert[ius], [he would become known as John Ball, Jr, on the death of his grandfather and would then win the Amateur Championship a record eight times] was first favourite, having carried all before him and rarely suffered defeat….
On the cards being handed in, it was found that Mr. Allan MacFie had won the Dowie Cup with the excellent score of 85 strokes ….
The next best score was that of Mr. James Hunter, a well known St. Andrews player.
This gentleman secured the Hall-Blyth Gold Medal with the creditable score of 88 strokes ….
The next best scratch scores were John Ball, Tert, [and two others] 89 ….
(Dundee Courier, 11 October 1883, p. 4)
After the 1884 Open Championship at Prestwick (in which James Hunter f inished 17th), the Open Champion of 1883, Willie Fernie (1855-1924), was pleased to take the amateur Hunter as his partner in a foursome match against two formidable professional opponents: the just crowned 1884 Open Champion, Jack Simpson, and a rising match-play star, Willie Campbell (who would be hired by the Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1894). Figure 19 Willie Fernie, circa 1883.
Not given much of a chance against the pair of golf professionals, Fernie and Hunter would win a close match – largely because of the latter’s play:
The most important of the [exhibition] matches played on Saturday [after completion of the Open Championship] was that of a foursome by Mr. James Hunter and W. Fernie (ex champion) against J. Simpson (champion) and W. Campbell.
The game was one of 36 holes and excited considerable excitement, as was seen from the big crowd that followed the players.
The favourites were undoubtedly Simpson and Campbell, who seemed to justify the confidence of their supporters as they came in two up in the first round of 18 holes, due in large measure to the excellent putting of Campbell ….
The playing of balls from the tee by Fernie was not up to the form he exhibited in the match for the [Open] Championship on Friday ….
But for the admirable approaches to the hole made by Mr. Hunter, the round would have closed much more to their disadvantage.
On starting on the second part of the match, the first two holes fell to Mr. Hunter and Fernie, making the match all square….
The match ended in their favour by one hole.
(Irvine Times [Scotland], 10 October 1884, p. 3)
Another account of the match assessed the relative performances of the four players.
On the one hand, “Simpson’s play was not so equal, frequently foozling his teed shots, as also his iron. Campbell played a fine game all through, his long puts keeping down a severe defeat and nearly making the game all square” (Irving Herald [Scotland], 11 October, p. 3).
On the other hand:
Fernie, in the first round, topped a few balls and was not playing so steadily, but in the second round his play was faultless.
Hunter played a very steady game both rounds but was noticed particularly for his grand approach to the green with the iron, he invariably landing the ball within a yard or a yard and a half from the hole.
(Irving Herald [Scotland], 11 October, p. 3)
And so, Hunter was well-known amongst amateur and professional golfers alike, and his abilities were widely respected by partners and opponents.
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After he died so unexpectedly in 1886 (his friends in Mobile said he seemed “stout and healthy” [Mississippi Press [Pascagoula, Mississippi], 5 February 1886, p. 2]), a correspondent wrote about him to the Aberdeen Evening Express:
On the day after the remains of Principal Tulloch [principal of the University of St. Andrews] were laid in the cathedral grounds of St. Andrews, those of Mr. Hunter, a well known golfer, were deposited in the family burying-ground of Tom Morris, his father-in law, and beneath the golfing memorial erected to the memory of “Young Tom,” the epitaph of which was written by the Principal.
Mr. Hunter was born at Prestwick and early became a keen golfer, and though actively engaged in trade in America, where he instituted the Quebec Golf Club, he spent his summers in this country, and there was no one better known and [more] deservedly highly appreciated both as a good exponent and liberal patron of the game.
His well-known figure will be missed upon the various greens on both sides of the Tweed. (Aberdeen Evening Express, 27 February 1886, p. 2)
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Seeming to be in good health, Hunter had no way of knowing that he was playing his final rounds of golf in the fall of 1885.
He played well in an amateur competition at Carnoustie at the end of September, afterwards being invited to play in a foursome exhibition match as the partner of John Ball, Jr. They had known each other since being paired together in a Hoylake competition in October of 1881, when Ball was just 19 years of age (we recall that Ball’s 19-year-old cousin Willie Davis had left Hoylake for Montreal in March of that year). In the 1880s, Hunter was also a foursomes partner of John Ball, Jr’s father – as we recall, a founder of Royal Liverpool whose hotel served as the clubhouse.
Figure 22 H.S.C. Everard, 1880.
Figure 23 Bob Martin, circa 1885.
In mid-October, James Hunter travelled south to the Hoylake links of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club to participate once again in the competitions and exhibition matches that were part of its fall meeting.
He was now a member of the Club, and he was once again invited to play in notable exhibition matches:
Many golfers have arrived at Hoylake for the autumn meeting and some good singles and foursomes were enjoyed last Monday….
Tom Morris and [nephew] Jack Morris beat Mr. H.C.S. Everard [soon to become a noted golf writer] and Mr. Jas. Hunter one up but lost a second match by three up and one to play.
(Field [London, England], 10 October 1885, p. 535)
Hunter’s final exhibition match was against Bob Martin, the 1876 Open Champion who had won the Open Championship at St. Andrews just one week before.
Hunter’s final recorded round of golf was a good one: “Mr. James Hunter beat Bob Martin (champion) two up” (Field [London, England] 10 October 1885, p. 535).
His death less than four months later was officially noticed by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in a letter to the editor of Field:
DEATH OF MR. JAMES HUNTER
Sir,
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Your readers will hear with sincere regret of the sudden death of Mr. James Hunter at the early age of 37.
Mr. Hunter left this country for Mobile, Alabama, in November, apparently in the best of health.
On Feb. 1, a telegram was received by his father-in-law, Tom Morris, bidding him prepare for the worst – a warning unhappily but too soon justified by the event, as shortly afterwards news was received of his death from heart disease.
Of his merits as a golfer, accentuated as they were by his geniality of temperament and unfailing self-command under the most adverse circumstances, it is unnecessary to speak. Enough to say they were sufficient to raise him to quite the front rank of players, and at St. Andrews, Hoylake, and Prestwick, as well as at other greens, his loss will be severely felt.
The greatest sympathy is expressed for his widow and for the veteran “Old Tom.”
RESQUIAT IN PACE.
The Club House, St. Andrews
(Field [London, England], 13 February 1886, p. 193)
Remembered as a golfer and a businessman, James Hunter was not remembered as a golf course architect.
Some think that he laid out a course in Darien, Georgia, where he lived off and on between 1869 and 1879, but I can find no evidence to support such a claim.
Figure 24 Robert Hunter, Country Club of Mobile, 1915. Photograph courtesy of the Country Club of Mobile.
Mind you, his younger brother Robert Hunter (1850-1916), whom he brought out from Scotland in the late 1870s to run his Darien operation, and who later took over his Mobile concerns, certainly designed a course – the first golf course in Mobile (laid out in 1899) – and thereby became known as “The Father of Golf in Mobile.”
Whether or not James Hunter had a hand in designing any other golf course, his 12-hole Quebec layout is the only design about which we know anything.
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​Fortunately, although the earliest records of the Quebec Golf Club were long ago lost in a fire, just a month after the Club’s first handicap medal tournament (won by Hunter) was played in October of 1875, a description of Hunter’s layout was provided by Foote in his letter to the editor of Field.
Foote offered several general observations about the course: “The putting greens are fair; the distances between holes from 200 to 400 yards; seven shots to the hole is average play; and an hour and a half is required to do the round” (Field [London, England], vol 41 no 1195 [20 November 1875], p. 588).
Seven shots per hole on the 12-hole course produced a score of 84. Scratch player Hunter shot 64 in 1875 (an average of 5.3 per hole), the other gross scores being 85, 86, 87, and 89 (an average of just over 7 per hole). It was only when Musselburgh golfers Andrew Parks Scott (1854-1934) and his brother Thomas Martin Scott (1853-1932) joined the Club in 1876 that scores better than Hunter’s began to be achieved by the best players.
We can see from Foote’s detailed description of particular holes that Hunter laid out the original course so that, wherever possible, a tee shot was forced to carry a natural hazard – as we know, this was a design strategy that Tom Dunn would make a principle of penal golf course architecture in the early 1890s.
The natural cross hazards on Cove Fields that Hunter routed his holes across are emphasized by bold type in the text below:
Starting …, a drive of 150 yards clears a luxuriant crop of thistles and brings us within a cleek shot of the first hole….
The second hole is reached over the old French forts – a hard one for the novice.
Leaving there, we strike … for No. 3, and from an elevation 100 feet above it, a clean drive of 120 yards carries us over a yawning trench.
The fourth is a short hole … and the fifth, in the same direction, brings us to the turning point of our course after many hazards of bush and break….
80 feet above our heads lies No. 6…. A long swipe … must be taken in the wrong direction to gain this hole; otherwise the ball, rebounding from the hill, will be behind us….
Nos. 8 and 9 bring us homewards easy enough if the line is well kept and the marshy ground avoided….
After a hard struggle across some very rough ditches, No. 11 is found ….
(Field [London, England], vol 41 no 1195 [20 November 1875], p. 588, emphasis added)
There seem to have been no hazards to cross on the 7th and 10th holes (Foote does not even deign to describe these two holes), nor was there a hazard to cross on the last hole: “To No. 12, our start and finish, the run in is easy” (Field [London, England], vol 41 no 1195 [20 November 1875], p. 588).
The 1875 12-hole course seems to have endured until the middle of the 1880 season, during which a 14-hole course entered play.
We know that in May of 1880, “the Challenge trophy was the subject of a very keenly contested handicap match between members of the Quebec Golf Club” in which “eleven players started for a round of 12 holes” (Morning Chronicle [Quebec City], 31 May 1889, p. 3).
Clearly, the 12-hole course was still intact in the spring of 1880.
But when Montreal resident Alexander Dennistoun (who was a member of both the Montreal and Quebec clubs) came to Quebec in August of 1880 to play Thomas Martin Scott in “the annual match for the ‘Champion’ gold medal of the Quebec Club,” their match was played over a 14 hole course, with their play on each hole described in a Montreal newspaper (see the Daily Witness [Montreal], 30 Augusts 1880, p. 1).
When Dennistoun played this match at the end of August, it was said of him that he “had not before played” to “the ninth or Martello Tower hole” (Daily Witness, 30 Augusts 1880, p. 1). In May of 1880, however, the Montreal Golf Club had competed at Quebec City for the Challenge Cup – and it had done so “under the leadership of Capt. Dennistoun,” and so, on the one hand, since Dennistoun had played the 12-hole Cove Fields course in May but, on the other hand, encountered the Martello Tower Hole (or 9th hole) for the first time in August, we can see that the Martello Tower Hole was one of the new holes (Montreal Star, 22 May 1880, p. 1).
Perhaps the new course was simply the old 12-hole course with two more holes added to it. Or perhaps the Club had not just added two new holes but also changed other holes.
It is hard to tell.
It was on this new 14-hole course that Willie Davis played in May of 1881 when he was issued a challenge by the best player of the Quebec Golf Club, Andrew Parks Scott.
A.P. Scott was an accountant and his brother T.M. Scott was a bank manager. They had lived and worked in Edinburgh but played golf at Musselburgh. The immigrated to Quebec City in the mid-1870s and immediately joined the Quebec Golf Club.
Figure 25 A.P. Scott, 1896.
By the beginning of 1881, the Scott brothers were regarded as the two best golfers in Canada – “A.P. being a bit the better of the two” (R.G. Cassels, letter to the editor, Canadian Golfer, vol 16 no 10 [February 1931], p. 776).
By contrast, newly arrived golf professional Davis (just 19 years of age) was an unknown quantity. The Quebec Golf Club was determined to test the mettle of their rival club’s revolutionary acquisition.
Fresh from years of experience on the highly regarded links course at Hoylake (Davis’s contract with the Montreal Golf Club required him to specify his “average number of strokes in playing the round of the Hoylake links”), Davis must have been astonished by Quebec’s unique inland golf course (Davis’s handwritten contract, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club).
It took Davis more than half the match to find his feet in the contest against Scott – a match he long remembered and even wrote about in 1896:
On my arrival in Montreal, in April, the snow was not all off the ground, and there was very little play for two weeks.
I was soon challenged by Mr. A.P. Scott, then at Quebec, to play him on the latter links.
The match came off on May 23rd, and Mr. Scott led the way to the tenth hole, when he was 4 up and 8 to play.
I then began to realise that the match was getting altogether too one-sided, so, throwing off my coat, I went to work and, strange to say, won the remaining 8 holes, thus finishing 4 up.
This game was witnessed by the Marquis of Lorne, [a member of the Quebec Golf Club] who was then the governor General of Canada and for whom I afterward made several clubs.
(William F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club)
It may be that the turnaround that Davis achieved over the last eight holes of the match was facilitated by the fact that he was playing four of those holes for the second time that day.
James Hunter’s fingerprints were all over the earliest Quebec layouts. How much of the 14-hole course that Davis played in 1881 can be attributed to Hunter?
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In terms of the information presented above, we know that there was perhaps a 9-hole course laid out by1874, there was definitely a 12-hole course laid out by at least 1875, and there was definitely a 14-hole course laid out in 1880. We also know that Hunter was associated with the formation of the Club in 1874 and was back in Quebec City playing golf in 1875. The design of the earliest courses can confidently be attributed to him. We also know that Hunter represented the Club in Scotland in 1877 and in England in September of 1880, when he was described as “the representative of Canada.” One wonders whether he had been in Quebec City earlier in 1880 and might have advised the club about how to expand the course to 14 holes.
The 14-hole Cove Fields course introduced into play in the summer of 1880 was almost certainly the course that Davis played at the beginning of the next season when he competed against Scott in May of 1881. If Hunter had indeed designed the additional holes for the 14-hole course opened in 1880, then Davis would have encountered only Hunter’s work when he first played at Quebec. And even if two or more holes of the 12-hole course were designed by someone else, by far the majority of the holes that Davis played had been designed by Hunter. Furthermore, it is likely that any holes designed by other Club members were probably faithful to the design principles that Hunter had explained to Farquharson Smith when those two laid out the original course.
Figure 26 A.W. Smith, circa 1880.
Davis also played Quebec’s 14-hole course four times between 1890 and 1892 in competition with Andrew Whyte Smith (1849 1901), who had been universally acknowledged since 1882 as Canada’s best amateur golfer (he regularly defeated the Scott brothers).
In their seven matches between the spring of 1882 and the fall of 1892, two matches were drawn, Davis won two, and Smith won three. After their final match in the fall of 1892, Davis declared Smith “the best man he had ever met” (Gazette [Montreal], 31 October 1892).
Comparing the description of the course played by Dennistoun and T.M. Scott in August of 1880 to a diagram of the course published in 1882 (shown below), we can see that the course had changed somewhat during those two years.
Figure 27 J.M. Lemoine, Picturesque Quebec (Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1882), p. 518 a.
The 1880 Tower Hole was no longer the 9th but rather had become by 1882 the 6th. The 1880 10th hole was 100 yards, whereas the 10th hole in 1882 was the much longer Stevenson Hole (in 1896, it was reported to be 175 yards long). In 1880, the longest hole was the 7th. In 1882, the 7th hole was called “The Valley Hole,” but by 1890 it was simply called “The Long Hole.”
After the original course was laid out, according to Hall, it was regularly changed in relatively small ways: “From year to year, the Quebec golfers secured rights to play on the grounds [of Cove Fields]; putting greens were laid out and put in order; the course was varied and lengthened gradually and the course flourished” (Golf [London], 10 February 1899, p. 426).
Note that in those days, putting greens were not constructed as they would be in the early twentieth century on areas specially built-up above the level of the fairway, pushed up from front to back, with sculpted contours, but were rather pre-existing level areas of the golf property continuous with the fairway and rough around it, an area where dense grass could be cultivated and rolled to create a relatively smooth putting surface. And so, green sites at Cove Fields could easily have been varied from year to year as a green committee saw fit.
Similarly, as seen in the late 1890s photographs below, the Quebec Golf Club’s tee boxes were simply relatively level areas marked out by chalk lines, and so they could also easily be re located from year to year as a green committee saw fit.
Figure 28 Left: a tee box located behind the Drill Hall (probably the tee box for the hole known as “The Swamp” or “The Morass”). Right: a tee box at the base of the Martello Tower closest to the St. Lawrence River (probably the tee box for the hole called “The Valley Hole” or “The Long Hole” that ran up to the other Martello Tower).
But wherever a new green might have been laid out, and however much longer a hole might have been made by moving a tee box back, a report in the Golfing Annual for 1887-88 suggests that James Hunter’s original strategy of requiring golfers to carry their shots over the natural hazards to be found on Cove Fields endured for subsequent iterations of the layout:
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Quebec green may be termed a “sporting” one in every sense of the word.
It is more extensive and diversified in character than that at Montreal, its hazards being old fortifications, deep gullies (which carry off the melting snow in spring), precipices, bogs, and moats; altogether a pleasant green, if for no other reason than for the immense variety of trouble which can be enjoyed (?) while at work on it.
(Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p.124).
Figure 29 Henry Stanley Smith, undated photograph.
In an essay that he must have written in 1890, Henry Stanley Smith (1839-1916) – who was one of the eight men that James Hunter had introduced to golf in the mid-1870s – described the course in an essay for Horace Hutchinson’s book, Famous Golf Links, which was printed in the early months of 1891.
Smith, who knew every iteration of the course since 1874, allows us to see that much of the original layout endured into the 1890s and that it still sought to punish bad shots with all the same old natural cross hazards.
In 1875, we recall that Foote described the first hole as follows: “Starting …, a drive of 150 yards clears a luxuriant crop of thistles and brings us within a cleek shot of the first hole.” Stanley Smith describes what seems to be a lengthened version of the same hole:
The first hole out is played along the glacis, directly under the guns of the citadel, and, although a pretty hole, presents no peculiar features of interest.
A pulled ball, it is true, will find its way into the citadel moat, but a good drive, a long spoon shot, and a short iron will bring us to the green….
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” in Horace G. Hutchinson, Famous Golf Links [London: Longman, Green and Co., 1891], p. 181)
The hole is now a three-shot hole rather than a two-shot hole: the second shot by cleek no longer reaches the putting green, leaving a short iron for the approach.
Foote described the 2nd hole simply: “The second hole is reached over the old French forts – a hard one for the novice.” Stanley Smith describes a hole with the same name and the same requirement of a shot over the old forts:
“Old forts,” … the second hole out, is a good sporting hole.
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A pulled ball sails away into space and may find a resting-place in the bosom of the St. Lawrence.
A heeled ball curls into the “sugar-bowl,” so called not from its sweetness, but because masses of rock are piled up in it like bits of lump sugar in a basin.
A topped ball meanders into a ditch under the old fort wall. There is nothing for it here but a long, clean, straight drive, which will carry over the crumbling ruins of the old fortifications and land the player on an acre of green grass.
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” pp 182-83)
It is possible that this hole had also been lengthened, for although Foote does not even describe a second shot, Stanley Smith describes a second shot fraught with danger:
Even here [on the acre of green grass beyond the old fortifications], his troubles are not over, as the putting green is to be found in the angle of an old V-shaped outwork, and the approach is far from easy.
A topped iron shot strikes on the face of a rock and comes to utter grief; and if the vaulting ambition of the player leads him to drive clean over the green, he will fall on the other side of with a vengeance and may find himself … as far from the hole as when he started from the tee.
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 183)
Foote’s 3rd hole confronts a trench as cross hazard: “we strike … for No. 3, and from an elevation 100 feet above it, a clean drive of 120 yards carries us over a yawning trench.” Stanley Smith describes the same hole:
The third hole out is known as “the Trench,” for a long deep trench lies at the foot of the hill on which the tee is situated and intersects the green at this point.
In the early spring, when the winter’s snow has melted. The trench is full of water and is sometimes called “the burn.”
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 183)
Note that in 1890, Smith calls this hole “The Trench Hole,” whereas Lemoine’s 1882 diagram labels it “The French Hole.” A newspaper’s list of the holes in 1896 again calls it “The French Hole,” and it is now the 4th hole rather than the 3rd hole (Quebec Gazette, 10 June 1896, p. 2).
In 1875, Foote gives short shrift to the 4th and 5th holes, merely mentioning that they each run in the same direction and present “many hazards of bush and break,” but Foote’s detail about the 4th hole accords with Stanley Smith’s particular observation about the “troublesome” 4th hole: “there is a valley – ‘the happy valley’ – bristling all over with unplayable bunkers, to be avoided at all hazards” (Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 184). It may be this 4th hole (called “The Cliff Hole” by Smith in 1890 and by the Quebec Gazette in 1896 but labelled “The Rifle Pit Hole” by Lemoine in 1882) that we see in the photograph below, in which a golfer on the tee appears to play at a 45 degree angle away from the green seen to the left of him.
Figure 30 Canadian Pacific Railroad Company, The Ancient City of Quebec (19th edition; Quebec City: Chateau Frontenac Co., 1893), p. 22.
Playing away from the green was the strategy that Smith implicitly recommended for the 4th hole:
The tee is to be found on top of a small hill and the hole on a sort of rocky promontory which lies opposite.
Between the two hills is a valley – “the happy valley” – bristling all over with unplayable bunkers to be avoided at all hazards.
The great beauty of the drive from this tee is that it enables the player to gauge his own driving to a nicety.
If modest, he will cross the happy valley at its narrowest point and circumnavigate towards the hole at an angle of forty-five degrees.
If ambitious, he will go straight for the hole, but this necessitates a clean straight carry of 130 yards, and if the least bit short, he will strike the face of the cliff …. [and] his ball will be almost unplayable. He must take his niblick and play it quietly out onto the best bit of ground he can select and trust to getting up with the iron mashie. If he fail, he must go back to the niblick, and so on.
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” pp. 184-85)
What I take to be the view from the putting green of this 4th hole (which probably dates back to Hunter’s original design) can be seen in the 1894 painting reproduced below.​
Figure 31 Sketch of what I take to be the 4th green of the Quebec Golf Club, November 1894. James A. Barclay, Golf in Canada: A History (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1992).
In 1875, according to Foote, the 4th and 5th holes ran in the same direction. The 1898 photograph below looks over the area where the golfer above was located towards the Martello Tower where the chalked tee box shown in a photograph several pages above was found.
Figure 32 1898 photograph of a part of Cove Fields. The building visible left of the Martello Tower is a convent; the building visible right of it is a prison. The fence running up the steep hill toward the Martello Tower marked the golf course boundary.
Foote’s characterization of both the 4th and 5th holes as having “many hazards of bush and break” accords with Stanley Smith’s wish that “the mid-green [that is, the middle holes of the golf course] were not quite so rough” (Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 188).
Foote says that “Nos. 8 and 9 bring us homewards easy enough if the line is well kept and the marshy ground avoided,” and Stanley Smith describes a hole routed through this same marshy ground:
The “Lacrosse” is an easy hole, although there is an ugly patch to the right known as Griffith’s Garden and a dangerous morass to the left into which, on a windy day, a skied ball is very apt to flop.
This slough of despond is a constant source of aggravation to the Quebec caddie when called upon to retrieve [a ball] and on one occasion, a small Irishman struck work [i.e., went of strike].
He had successfully fished out the first ball (very nearly sacrificing his boots in the effort), but when his lord and master put a second ball into the same spot, it was too much for his feelings. “If ye can’t play no better than that,” he exclaimed with true Celtic independence, “ye may get another caddie and that’s what it is.”
And he laid down his clubs and disappeared.
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 184).
In 1875, Foote had little to say about holes 7 to 12, and in 1890, Smith was similarly reticent about five of the remaining seven holes on what had become a 14-hole course in 1880 (he found just two of the holes on the last half of the course were worth describing):
“The Long,” “The Morass” and “The Cup” are the next holes, but none of them call for remark ….
Of the remaining holes, “Stevenson’s,” named after one of the fathers of the club, and “Racquet Court,” which is the last hole in, might merit description, but enough has now been said to show that the Quebec green has well earned its Canadian title of “the sporting green.”
(Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” pp. 187-88)
We can see that many of Hunter’s holes endured into the 1890s and we can see that his strategy of requiring golfers to clear a cross hazard with their drive also endured.
Henry Stanley Smith assured golfers in 1890 that “on the Quebec green, the ‘sporting drive’ is always with us” (Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 185). He noted, mind you, that this fact was experienced quite differently by different sorts of golfers: “For the long clean driver, the Quebec links are a haven of rest, but for the duffer, they are Pandemonium, from the first hole to the eighteenth” (Henry Stanley Smith, “Golf in Canada,” p. 188).
Sharp made a similar observation in 1898:
[The Quebec course] is most diversified in character, running over and across the old French forts and earth works, the hazards being deep precipices, old fortifications, gullies, moats, swamps and bogs.
Long driving and sure iron shots are especially required in playing over these links; the short driver is punished.
(Golf [New York]. Vol 2 no 5 [May 1898], p. 23)
Long driving was necessary to carry natural cross hazards. Hunter’s course clearly exemplified what Tom Dunn would popularize as penal golf course architecture’s main principle: cross hazards must challenge all golfers, but those with short drives and unsure iron shots – those who fail the challenge – must be punished severely.
For a young golf professional who would begin to design his own golf courses in Canada and the United States in 1891, there were lessons to be learned from Hunter’s design principles deployed (over and over again, it seems) on Quebec City’s challenging inland course.
Montreal's Fletcher's Field
As we know, Willie Davis came to know the Quebec layout very well by the early 1890s, but Davis’s home course was the Montreal layout on Fletcher’s Field in Mount Royal Park. It, too, was modified between his first round of golf on the course in April of 1881 and his last round in the fall of 1892, and the last remodelling of the course was probably done by Davis, himself.
As in Quebec City, so in Montreal: there was talk that enthusiasm for golf in the city had preceded the formation of a golf club.
In fact, golf is supposed to have been played in Montreal by at least 1824.
In 1891, in an effort to investigate the question, the Montreal Herald reproduced an announcement that had been published in the same newspaper just over 66 years before.
Figure 33 December 1824 Montreal Herald announcement reproduced in the Montreal Herald, 12 January 1891, p. 1.
“Such as the above,” writes the editor of the Montreal Herald in 1891, “was the notice issued by our enthusiastic Scottish admirers of the game in the latter part of December 1824. This was probably the first time the sport was to be enjoyed…. Who can give us some further information on this subject?” (Montreal Herald, 11 January 1891, p. 1).
No further information seems to have been forthcoming.
The Priest’s Farm (so-called because a working farm surrounded and supported the Grand Seminary of St. Sulpice) was at the foot of Mount Royal. As can be seen on the 1840s map below, which shows but a portion of the Sulpician property, part of the farm was hilly and wooded, large parts of the farm were devoted to orchards, and part of the property was relatively level pasture land.
Figure 34 Detail from "Topographical and Pictorial Map of the City of Montreal," by James Cane, 1849.
In the 1820s, the level and open part of the Priest’s Farm was regularly used as a place for reviews of the city’s militia and of its cavalry troops. It was also a place for playing sports, such as cricket. As a field on the edge of the city where the public was allowed to play sports and otherwise enjoy recreation, it was a natural place to play a field sport such as golf.
In 1882, unaware of the Montreal Herald advertisement from December of 1824, the Montreal Gazette claimed that “the game of golf … was introduced into Canada in the year 1869 by several gentlemen in Montreal” (Gazette [Montreal], 9 October 1882, p. 8). The gentlemen in question were not named. But in his 1898 essay on the history of Canadian golf, John P. Roche (1860-1903), sports editor for the Montreal Gazette since the mid-1880s, named two of the gentlemen, and he also explained where they had played their golf:
Figure 35 Richard Roe Grindley (1834-1898), Montreal Star, 13 May 1898, p. 7.
As far as reliable information is available, golf was played in Montreal between thirty and forty years ago by a few enthusiasts who happily brought with them to the new world the healthy ideas of sport imbibed in the land of their fathers.
In those days, there was a common called Logan’s Farm that would have delighted the heart of any golfer. Logan’s farm has been transformed into the picturesque Logan’s Park, but there are still with us a few gentlemen who speak with feeling of those good old days in the sixties. If Mr. W.M. Ramsay or Mr. R.R. Grindley could be prevailed upon to write his reminiscences, they would supply the golfing world with some very interesting reading anent them.
(J.P. Roche, “Canadian Golf,” in Outing, vol 32 no 3 [June 1898], pp. 260-61).
Figure 36 W.M. Ramsay, circa 1881.
Roche implies that his “reliable information” consists of having heard Ramsay and Grindley reminiscing about the golf they played before the Montreal Golf Club was formed.
Edinburgh-born insurance agent, banker, and businessman William Miller Ramsay (1834-1912) and banker Richard Roe Grindley (1839-1898) were founding members of the Montreal Golf Club. In fact, Ramsay was elected vice-president at the organizational meeting on 4 November 1873.
Grindley never had a chance to respond to Roche’s appeal to write down his reminiscences, for he died two months before Roche’s essay was published. Otherwise, Grindley would have corrected Roche’s claim that he had played golf at Logan’s Park in 1869, for Grindley did not arrive in Montreal until the fall of 1870. At the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Club, however, founding member John Taylor recalled that “It was in ’72 that the idea of starting a club was brought up” – a timeline that would have allowed Grindley to have been involved in this discussion. At the same celebration, Ramsay supplemented Taylor’s information about the beginning of golf in Montreal:“After Mr. Taylor, Mr. William Ramsay spoke. He went back a little further than Mr. Taylor [he said] … and mentioned the time when they used to play on Logan’s Park, which was then in reality a farm” (Montreal Star, 10 February 1899, p. 2).
Ramsay confirms that several gentlemen played golf at Logan’s Farm before the Montreal Golf Club was formed, and we can probably infer that it was play at Logan’s farm that got the gentlemen in question talking in 1872 about the idea of forming a golf club.
Today, La Fontaine Park represents the only open land that remains of the much larger Logan’s Farm, which belonged for three generations to a Logan family that arrived from Scotland in 1784 and parlayed success as bakers in Old Montreal into the purchase of a vast tract of land outside the city limits that they turned into a farm: it was said that the rolling, partially wooded landscape crossed by creeks reminded the original owner of Scotland.
By the 1870s, both Logan’s Farm and Fletcher’s Field had become the sites for military drills and parades, as well as all sorts of popular sports (such as quoits, cricket, baseball, football, and so on), so it is not surprising that people played golf at Logan’s Farm.
In fact, a comparison in 1877 between Logan’s Farm and Fletcher’s Field by a reporter who had witnessed military parades on both properties perhaps suggests that Logan’s Farm might have had the better potential for golf: a military “review took place on Fletcher’s Field, Mount Royal Park, and, although this ground does not offer by any means the diversity of landscape presented at Logan’s Farm, with its wood, ravine, and level parade ground, yet the former is not without some picturesqueness to relieve the eye” (Montreal Star, 25 May 1877, p. 2).
As late as 1900, Logan’s farm was targeted for development as a golf course:
A NEW GOLF CLUB
French-Canadian Sportsmen are Organizing to Play This Now Popular Game
The Jacques Cartier Golf Club Will be the Title of the New Organization – Links on Logan’s Farm
The royal and ancient game of golf is attracting attention among French-Canadian lovers of outdoor sports and a club is now in process of organization among French Canadian sportsmen of this city.
The new club will be known as “The Jacques Cartier Golf Club.”
A number of gentlemen well known in social and sporting have the details of organization in hand and will be a matter of fact ere the snow flies. The matter has been enthusiastically taken up and it is predicted that this organization will be a success from the start.
​
For links, it is proposed to lay out a course on the eastern portion of Logan’s Farm….
The western part is, of course, a park, the central portion is used as a playground, but the extreme eastern end is not used at all.
There is plenty of room; in fact, it is said that there is much more room than on the mountain side where the Metropolitan Club has its links [formerly the links of the Montreal Golf Club].
It is said that permission will be asked of the Parks and Ferries Committee within a few days to use the ground for the purpose of laying out a nine-hole course.
Several of the aldermen are interested in the game and it is highly probable that the request will be favourably listened to.
(Montreal Star, 10 October 1900, p. 5)
Figure 37 Logan's Farm (Military Exercise Ground) shown in a detail from a map of Montreal made in 1869.
Despite its attractiveness as a terrain suitable to golf, from the point of view of the Montreal Golf Club in the 1870s, perhaps the biggest problem with Logan’s Farm was that it was a mile further than Fletcher’s Field from the city centre where actual and potential members of the Club lived and worked. Club secretary John L. Morris remarked in 1892 that “the grounds of the ‘Royal Montreal Golf Club’ are situate upon the north-eastern slope of Mount Royal and are …. within ten minutes’ drive of the business part of the city” (Montreal Star, 7 November 1892, p. 3).
​
According to Sharp, Fletcher’s Field was the second place where the Montreal Golf Club played the game:
Just twenty-five years ago … was established the Montreal Golf Club ….
A piece of land close to the city was at first used, but in the course of a year or two, it was found necessary to seek other grounds.
These were discovered without trouble, and links were laid out on Fletcher’s Field, a large common and part of Mount Royal Park lying about a mile from the center of the city.
(Golf [New York]. Vol 2 no 5 [May 1898], p. 21)
Is Sharp’s reference to “a piece of land close to the city” that the Club “first used” for golf an allusion to Logan’s Farm?
If so, is Sharp’s claim correct, or has he muddled together different events: on the one hand, play by gentlemen at Logan’s Farm before a golf club was organized and, on the other hand, play by the same gentlemen at Fletcher’s Field after the Montreal Golf Club was organized?
According to André Tessier, on the very day the Club was founded, 4 November 1873, “six trous furent inaugurés sur le Fletcher’s Field pars les premiers membres” (“Le Golfe Comme Lieu de Distinction ; Deux Examples : Le Royal Montréal et le Royal Québec,” M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Laval University, 1999, p. 27). Tessier indicates no source for his claim, and the assertion does not ring true, for although he claims there were 25 members on 4 November 1873, there were actually just eight members present at the organization meeting that night, and there were just 15 members the first year – each of whom was named by the Montreal Gazette’s anonymous historian who reviewed the first 48 years of the club’s history by consulting the club’s records in 1921 (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21).
Figure 38 Eric Mann (1848-1929).
Original member Eric Mann recalled in 1921 that 1874 was the Club’s “first playing season” (Gazette [Montreal], 24 October 1921, p. 13). Similarly, the anonymous 1921 Gazette historian indicates that golf started not in 1873, but rather in 1874. And, apparently, it was not played on Logan’s Farm: “play began in 1874 when it was arranged that members should meet each Wednesday and Saturday on the green at the head of Durocher Street” (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21). That is, in 1874, play began on Fletcher’s Field, which Club members called “The Green.”
Curiously, there is no reference to the new golf club in any of the Montreal newspapers until October of 1874, when an item was published that seems to have been based on a communication from the secretary of the Montreal Golf Club, Joshua C. Collins (Collins had acted as secretary at the founding meeting on 4 November 1873):
Figure 39 Joshua C. Collins, 1881.
We understand that the Golf Club which has lately been organized for play in this city meets for play on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.
The Secretary of the Club, J. Collins, Esq., Custom House Square, will be happy to afford information to any gentlemen desirous of joining the Club.
(Montreal Star, 27 October 1874, p. 1)
That it was only at the end of the 1874 golf season that the secretary asked the Montreal Star to publicize the club’s weekly schedule and to announce that new members were welcome perhaps suggests that the Club was slow to get itself organized in its first full year.
Such a suspicion is supported by the fact that there was no club championship conducted in 1874. The Club’s new secretary, J.K. Oswald, wrote to newspapers at the end of the 1875 season to announce that “the first champion belt won at this royal game in Canada” had just been awarded at the conclusion of a competition held by the new Montreal Golf Club (Montreal Star, 26 October 1875, p. 3).
And so, the possibility remains that the gentlemen who organized the Club in November of 1873 began to play in the spring of 1874 where some of them had been playing golf all along – at Logan’s Farm – and then moved to Fletcher’s Field later in 1874.
Alexander Dennistoun may have been instrumental in directing the Club’s attention to the golf possibilities of Fletcher’s Field. Eric Mann recalled observing Dennistoun using Fletcher’s Field as an informal driving range in 1873 before – just before the Club was formed, it seems:
The first time I ever saw golf in Canada was in 1873.
One day, while walking with my wife on the lower part of what is now Fletcher’s Field, I saw a carriage drive up and, as it passed, I remarked that the occupant has some clubs.
Presently, the carriage drew up and the gentleman got out and began hitting some balls to likely spots where they could be recovered.
That was Mr. Alex. Dennistoun. (Gazette [Montreal], 24 October 1921, p. 13)
​
The Club was certainly well-established at Fletcher’s Field by 1875, for in mid-October of that year, the editor of the Montreal Gazette referred to the Club’s Fletcher’s Field course in an item intended to promote the development of golf in Canada (“We trust this notice will be the means of bringing out more players who may not as yet know the existence of the game of ‘golf’ in Canada”):
“GOLF” IN CANADA
We are glad to see this game gaining ground in Canada.
Already we have two clubs started – one in Montreal and one in Quebec.
In the former city, play is carried on generally every Wednesday and Saturday on the “turf” on the east side of the mountain, where there are six holes and lots of “hazards” to try the amateur player’s skill and patience.
(Gazette [Montreal], 21 October 1875, p. 3).
People often refer to the original Fletcher’s Field course as a nine-hole layout, but this 1875 reference to a six-hole course seems accurate.
On the one hand, the Club is said to have an “ink sketch” of “the original six-hole layout” which is “framed and displayed for the members” [Denzil Palmer, quoted in “The First Club,” Golf Canada Magazine, April 2017].)
Figure 40 J.K. Oswald, circa 1881.
On the other hand, note that the number “six” was italicized in the 1875 newspaper report (the word had been highlighted in the text provided to the newspaper’s typesetter) and note that Secretary Oswald cut out this article and glued it into his record book for 1875, and when he did so, he did not cross out the word “six” and write in the word “nine,” nor did he otherwise indicate that the newspaper’s information was inaccurate.
And so, we can presumably take it as a fact that the Fletcher’s Field golf course had just six holes before the publication of this 21 October 1875 item.
Curiously, however, just two days after this newspaper report about the six-hole course appeared, another newspaper report hinted that the golf course had seven holes.
For Oswald had submitted identical press releases to the Montreal Gazette and the Montreal Star in which he provided interesting information about the course as it existed on 23 October 1875:
The Montreal Golf Club played for their Champion Belt on Saturday last [October 23rd].
The match was two rounds of 14 holes.
After a keenly contested game, which showed excellent play, the result was that Mr. Oswald came in the winner of the belt, which, we might add, is the first champion belt won at this royal game in Canada.
(Montreal Star, 26 October 1875, p. 3; Gazette [Montreal], 26 October 1875, p. 3)
The number “14” appears in both newspapers, indicating that it was unlikely to have been the result of a compositor’s error. This reference to 14 holes seems to suggest that the course now had seven holes – two rounds of the course adding up to 14 holes.
And so, late in October of 1875, another hole seems to have been added to the six holes in play earlier that month.
This information about six holes and seven holes on Fletcher’s Field in 1875 is consistent with the possibility that the golfers had played elsewhere at the beginning of 1874 and that they first set themselves up on the land on the east side of the mountain late in 1874 or early in 1875, beginning with six holes and then incrementally adding more until a nine-hole circuit was created – perhaps by October of 1876, when the Quebec Golf Club came to play for the first time, immediately after which a Quebec player wrote about the event to the editor of Field: “The Montreal Golf Club has put its ground in excellent order” (Field [London, England], 30 December 1876, p. 791).
Note that there were certainly nine holes at the beginning of the 1877 season, for the Club conducted a competition in June with members “playing two rounds of nine holes each” (Montreal Star, 11 June 1877, p. 2).
Whenever the original six-hole Fletcher’s Field course was laid out, it was apparently laid out by Thomas McAnulty, who recalled the event when the 25th anniversary of the founding of Royal Montreal Golf Club was being celebrated in 1898: “Mr. Thomas McNulty [sic] has just been recalling with pride the fact that the putting-ground he … laid down a quarter of a century ago on Fletcher’s Field was the first in all America” (Canadian Gazette [London], cited in Toronto Saturday Night, 10 December 1898, p. 10).
Figure 41 John Torrance (1776 1870), 1863.
Born in Ireland in 1829, son of Neil McAnulty (a gardener) and Mary Crossen, but immigrating to Montreal with his family when he was just a young boy, McAnulty was employed for many years as the head gardener for John Torrance, retail and wholesale merchant, owner of a steamboat company, director of railroad companies, director of the Bank of Montreal, and so on.
Torrance loved gardening and became a founder of the Montreal Horticultural Society in 1849. To manage his many acres of landscaped gardens, vineries, orchards, and conservatories, he had sought for the post of head gardener at his St. Antoine Hall estate the best man in Montreal.
​
Submitting specimens from Torrance’s estate, McAnulty regularly won various prizes at horticultural exhibitions throughout the 1860s.
But Torrance died in 1870 and McAnulty soon thereafter left professional gardening, but he would maintain a lifelong interest in horticulture. In fact, in the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s, McAnulty would serve as a judge for exhibitions organized by the Montreal Gardeners and Florists Club and he would often respond to papers delivered at the Club’s meetings.
​
As the head gardener at Torrance’s St. Antoine Hall, where he grew many exotic plants, McAnulty’s reputation was such that a letter he wrote to the president of Coe’s Superphosphate of Lime Company was subsequently used in in the mid-1860s in a substantial advertising campaign in Quebec and Ontario:
Figure 42 St. Antoine Hall, Montreal, Quebec, circa 1860s.
​Mr. A. Coe
​
Dear Sir,
​
I used some of your Superphosphate last year [1863] upon the Garden and Grounds of Mr. John Torrance, of which I have the charge, and wherever I used it, the effects were very marked and satisfactory.
​
The Dahlias upon which I used it had a most extraordinary growth, some of them reaching 10 or 12 feet in height.
It did well also on Grape Vines and other plants where I used it.
​
I can certainly say it is a very valuable fertilizer, according to my experience.
I am yours respectfully,
Thomas McAnulty
Gardener for Mr. John Torrance
Montreal, April 5, 1864
(Gazette [Montreal], 18 May 1864, p. 3)
Although McAnulty was described as a gardener as late as a local newspaper’s 1876 funeral notice about the death of his young son, he seems to have been hired in 1873 or 1874 to work in Montreal’s newly created Mount Royal Park (in January of 1897, the Mount Royal Park Committee acknowledged that he had “been in the city’s service for 23 years” [Montreal Herald, 15 January 1897, p. 1]). He may have begun his work in the park as a gardener, for gardeners were hired to clear brush from the new park even before a Chief Ranger was hired in 1874.
Also sometimes called a Park Guardian or Park Constable or Forest Ranger, McAnulty worked long hours over the course of almost three decades as a ranger, and he was not awarded a raise or promotion for the first quarter century of his work, according to an alderman who took up his case before City Council in 1897:
Ald. Kinsella … [had] the object of obtaining an increase of salary for Forest Ranger McAnulty….
Kinsella held that McAnulty was certainly entitled to an increase. His duties required him to be on hand from 5 o’clock in the morning until late at night, and he was moreover obliged to cover a large area of the park grounds.
“If he had been a Frenchman,” said Ald. Kinsella, “he would have been all right, but because he is an Irishman, he has no one to shove him ahead.”
(Montreal Herald, 15 January 1897, p. 1)
​
Over his nearly three-decade career as park ranger, McAnulty’s exploits were often chronicled in the newspapers.
​
A personal highlight for him was giving a tour of the park to Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise, whose husband, the Marquis of Lorne, was just beginning his five-year term as Governor General of Canada (1878-83):
Figure 43 Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne, mid-1870s.
The Princess’s Visit to the Mountain Her Royal Highness took advantage of the fine, clear weather on Sunday to visit the Mountain Park …. The Princess drove to the park about 4 o’clock … accompanied by Lady Macnamara and Hon. Mrs. Moreton and Col. MacNeil, … Equerry to the Queen, in attendance on Princess Louise….
The carriage stopped at the refreshment booth and the Princess alighted with her ladies and sent the carriage back to town. The visitors to our Mountain Park strolled along, viewing from this point and that point the many beautiful pictures that are to be seen from its summit. The Princess was enraptured with views presented to her sight.
​
During the party’s perambulations, Mr. McNaulty [sic], one of the Park Rangers, saw them, and thinking that they wanted to go to the cemetery, as they were walking that way, went up to them to give them some directions as to the best way of getting there. He was told, however, that the party wanted to see the western part of the country. He then, without knowing who his visitors were, offered to conduct them to a point where the finest view could be obtained.
Col. McNeil asked if the distance was great, and on being told about 500 yards, the Princess commenced a brisk walk across the bush with the ranger and Col. McNeil by her side….
On the way, McNaulty was surprised to learn from one of the gentlemen of the party that the lady he was conducting was Princess Louise. The ranger now took special pains to see that Her Royal Highness saw everything that was to be seen and guided her with great care over some nasty places.
But the ranger says the Princess has been used to climbing mountains: that he is sure of, as she never displayed the slightest uneasiness at any of the dangerous parts where, indeed, very few of our citizens go.
“She is full of courage and a kind spoken lady,” says the ranger….
[Reaching] the point from which the best views were to be seen …. the Princess was heard to exclaim, “What beautiful scenery.” The view was at that point magnificent. The sun was slowly going down in the west and the Valley of the Ottawa stood out to advantage. The villages of Sault au Recollet, St. Laurent, and the Mile End were all named to the Princess and the view of the Back River quite charmed the Princess. The party now started back … and on the way the Princess asked the ranger many questions concerning the number of people who visited [the park] and other matters connected with the rules that govern the park….
On reaching solid ground, McNaulty said good day, and the princess returned his salutation courteously, at the same time rewarding him with some solid British coins for his attention.
Mr. McNaulty is loud in his praise of the amiability and kindness of the princess, and it would go hard with anyone that would say anything but a kind word for her were he present.
(Montreal Herald and Commercial Gazette, 3 December 1878, p. 2)
McAnulty – who was described as “always obliging” – may have been surprised that this performance of his ranger’s duties was covered so widely by the newspapers (Montreal Star, 3 December 1878, p. 3). More often, he made the news for less pleasant aspects of his work:
Thomas McAnulty, ranger, deposed [at a coroner’s inquest] that he was going around on his beat this morning and saw … [a person] looking over the fence.
He [also] looked over the fence and saw blood all over the … face and head [of a body], so he climbed over the fence.
On going closer, he saw that the right hand was lying by the body. There was a revolver in that hand….
He asked [three passersby] … to call at the police station on St. George Street and report the matter….
He remained in charge of the body till … detectives came up and he saw that the body was not disturbed.
(Montreal Star, 3 October 1887, p. 5)
He was also involved in a good deal of environmental policing: “Two young men … were arrested at noon yesterday by Constable McAnulty for catching birds in Mount Royal Park” (Montreal Star, 23 October 1878, p. 3). On other occasions, he saw to it that people were arrested for cutting down trees and stealing wood.
But there were instances of more dangerous policing:
A Reckless Youth
On Sunday afternoon, Park Ranger McNulty [sic] heard the sound of a pistol shot from the orchard near Fletcher’s Field. Hastening in that direction, he saw a young man recklessly firing a revolver. He immediately gave chase and succeeded in capturing him.
​
While he was being conveyed to the [police] station, he resisted and bit Mr. McNulty severely.
He was overpowered, however, and locked up.
(Gazette [Montreal], 1July 1879, p. 4)
Occasionally, there was an opportunity to do a great good:
Attempted Outrage …
A case of attempted outrage was tried on a young girl on Fletcher’s Field last evening.
Young Miss Harding, aged about 13 years, was returning to her parents’ home about 6 o’clock when she was accosted by a well-dressed ruffian. He offered to escort her home, and she consented, but he afterwards tried to assault her.
Her screams, however, brought Ranger McNaulty [sic], of the Park, to her assistance, when the man ran away.
(Gazette [Montreal], 12 February 1889, p. 3)
McAnulty would became associated in the public’s mind not just with the building and design of the first golf course in Montreal but also with the establishing and nurturing of golf culture in the city more generally. When McAnulty died in 1904, the Montreal Star observed: “In his capacity as guardian of Mount Royal Park, he was well known for the interest he displayed in the game of golf. Several generations will remember his familiar figure on the old links on Fletcher’s Field” (Montreal Star, 19 March 1904, p. 19). Although McAnulty has since been completely forgotten, he was once so widely known for his connection to the origins of golf in Montreal that at the beginning of the twentieth century, McAnulty was “said to have been the first Montrealer to take up the game in the city” (Gazette [Montreal], 2 September 1901, p. 3).
In McAnulty’s own day, in fact, it became a matter for debate whether it was properly “in his capacity as guardian of Mount Royal Park” that “he displayed [interest] in the game” and became a “familiar figure on the … links on Fletcher’s Field.” The question of whether his support of the Royal Montreal Golf Club was really part of his responsibilities as a city employee was discussed by the Montreal City Council.
His nominal superior was the Chief Ranger, William McGibbon (1825-1907) – a retired Lieutenant-Colonel of the Montreal Field Battery and perhaps the most important early figure in the creation of Mount Royal Park, for he was tasked with realizing the plans for the park drawn up by Frederick Law Olmsted (plans that required the making of roads and a blasting away of the rock in the way of them). Yet when Chief Ranger McGibbon attempted to dismiss McAnulty for “alleged ill treatment to a boy,” an uproar ensued at City Council (Daily Witness [Montreal], 9 June 1885, p. 4).
Figure 44 Lieutenant-Colonel William McGibbon, Montreal Field Battery (1855-82).
One alderman observed that “McNulty had been complained of before both by the Park Ranger [McGibbon] and private individuals,” but another alderman “desired that McNulty be re installed” – the alderman in question explaining that “he had been asked by gentlemen to bring the question before the Council” (Daily Witness [Montreal], 9 June 1885, p. 4).
My suspicion is that McAnulty had removed a boy from the golf course – perhaps rather forcibly – and that the gentlemen who wanted McAnulty reinstated as Park Ranger were members of the Montreal Golf Club, for those opposed to McAnulty made clear that the basis of their dissatisfaction with him was that “McNulty [sic] did more work for the Golf Club than for the Park Commissioners” (Daily Witness [Montreal], 9 June 1885, p. 4).
An item appeared in the local newspapers two weeks later: “Mr. McNulty [sic], the Mountain Park employee who was suspended a short time ago, has been reinstated by the Parks and Ferry Committee” (Gazette [Montreal], 25 January 1885, p. 3).
McAnulty not only kept his job but also seems to have become somewhat independent of supervision by McGibbon and by the Park Commissioners.
For example, regarding this question of someone who ostensibly represented the Montreal Golf Club attempting to evict boys from the golf course, note a Park Commissioner’s quarrelsome response to a reporter’s suggestion that the golfers should left alone since the men and women golfing in their red tops at Fletcher’s Field were so “picturesque”:
It looks just as picturesque to see schoolboys at play at baseball, lacrosse, and cricket.
The golfers have gone so far, I am told, as to order these boys out of the way.
The boys have as much right there as they [the golfers] have, inasmuch as they both belong to the general public, whose money paid for the park.
(Daily Witness [Montreal], 20 May 1892, p. 1)
​
Of course, the person evicting the boys from the golf course is likely to have been that longtime benefactor of the Club, Park Ranger McAnulty, whose job it was (among others) to police traffic on Fletcher’s Field.
It turns out that attempts to fire McAnulty only made him stronger.
When McGibbon again tried to have him dismissed in 1897, one alderman rose to defend McAnulty and another called McGibbon before the City Council and interrogated him about this new attempt to dismiss him:
Ald. Sadler wanted to know if he (McAnulty) was under the control of the [chief] park ranger.
Mr. McGibbon answered somewhat evasively and merely remarked that it was rather a mixed-up affair.
(Montreal Herald, 15 January 1897, p. 1)
Once again, McAnulty kept his job, and he presumably kept on doing as he had been doing.
McGibbon retired two years after this final attempt to fire McAnulty – which was several years before McAnulty himself retired.
Figure 45 Chief Park Ranger's house, circa 1879.
As Chief Park Ranger, McGibbon (and his family) lived in the old H.B. Smith House for 22 years, beginning in 1874, whereas McAnulty resided in the ranger’s lodge built by the City in 1881 – the building in which a large room was reserved for the use of the Royal Montreal Colf Club: “In the orchard on the eastern side of the mountain, a house for the park ranger is just going to be erected, together with a hall for the accommodation of the Golf Club” (Gazette [Montreal], 16 May 1881, p. 3). The Club eventually leased the entire building as clubhouse.
The Club was careful to cultivate a good relationship with both McAnulty and McGibbon. For instance, during the winter of 1881-82, when the Club commissioned its famous composite photograph of its 1881 membership, in addition to arranging for taking individual photographs of each member, the Club commissioned a photograph of Chief Ranger McGibbon and included his image along with the images of the Club members presented in the historic tableau.
Figure 46 Circa 1919, the 1882 composite photograph of the members of the Montreal Golf Club was reproduced with a “key” identifying the people whose photographs composed the image. William McGibbon is numbered 17.
Numbered 17 in this 1919 version of the 1882 photograph by photographers Notman & Sandham of Montreal, McGibbon is literally at the centre of this depiction of about 30 members of the Royal Montreal Golf Club.
By the beginning of February 1882, this photograph was being displayed prominently in the window of the photographers’ Montreal studio, and a local newspaper published a glowing review of it:
Figure 47 Greatly enlarged detail from the photograph above.
We yesterday had the pleasure of seeing at Messrs. Notman & Sandham’s studio a very handsome and artistically arranged photograph group of the Montreal Golf Club.
The artist has done his work well and deserves much credit for presenting so charming a picture.
Mount Royal makes a bold background from which stands out in relief the Golf Club house and in front of it, on the high ridge of Fletcher’s Field, are ranged the members of the club in all kinds of peaceful and easy attitudes.
A few ladies and some small boys carrying golf sticks are put in, adding much to the beauty of the scene.
The portraits of the members are all clearly cut and stand out sharp and life-like.
The grouping could not have been improved upon; everything is very natural in positions and surroundings.
The members of the club, all very handsome men, by the way, are to be congratulated upon making so excellent a picture, which is now on view at Notman’s.
​
(Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 7 February 1882, p. 8)
Having William McGibbon visit the photographers’ studio to have his picture taken, and including his image alongside images of its members, the Montreal Golf Club publicly demonstrated respect both for the office of Chief Park Ranger and for the person occupying that office.
Figure 48 A sketch of the ranger’s lodge built in 1881. The Club officially opened its room within the lodge in October of 1881. Detail from Notman & Sandham's 1882 photograph.
As mentioned in the newspaper’s review of the photograph, the Club’s members were ranged in front of a sketch of the new ranger’s lodge.
The trees to the right of the building are probably apple trees, for the clubhouse was built next to one of the old orchards that were common on the mountain farms that were expropriated for the assembling of the park land.
This orchard would later loan its name to two of the Club’s golf holes.
Figure 49 A circa 1908 photograph of the clubhouse from a perspective similar to the one in the sketch above.
Although the photograph of Chief Park Ranger McGibbon was placed in front of the sketch of the new ranger’s lodge in Mount Royal Park, the Park Ranger who lived inside this new building was McAnulty.
Given this fact, and given also McAnulty’s well-known work on behalf of the Royal Montreal Golf Club (service even above and beyond his job description), one might have expected an image of McAnulty to have been included in the Club’s composite photograph.
My guess is that the Club decided to be politic and present the Chief Park Ranger – rather than one of his employees – as the person who was implicitly one of their number.
In the fall of 1880, the Club’s Captain, Alexander Dennistoun, had broached the idea of building a lodge on Fetcher’s Field, and the suggestion was immediately endorsed by the editor of the Montreal Gazette:
A Lodge for the Mountain Park
The suggestion made by Capt. Dennistoun at the lunch of the golf club on Saturday that a lodge should be erected at the entrance to Mount Royal Park on Bleury Street [later renamed Park Avenue] is a good one and should be considered by the Park Commissioners.
(Gazette [Montreal], 4 October 1880, p. 5).
The City officially approved plans for such a building in the spring of 1881.
Perhaps Dennistoun had in mind from the beginning a residence for the Club’s favorite park ranger: the golf-mad McAnulty.
Beginning with a large room reserved for its use, the Club eventually leased the entire building from the City to use at its clubhouse, which became known as the Golf House, but the Club allowed McAnulty and his wife to continue living in it. And McAnulty did his part to keep the building in good repair: “Ranger McAnulty complained that his residence (the Golf club house) was untenable, as the roof was leaking” (Gazette [Montreal], 15 October 1887, p. 5).
McAnulty resided in the building for eleven years, and when he moved out in 1892, the Club marked the occasion with the presentation to him of a generous gift of money:
GOLF
A Deserved Tribute
Mr. T. McAnulty, park ranger, was made the happy recipient of a handsome subscription by the members of the Royal Montreal Golf Club as an expression of their esteem on the occasion of his leaving the Golf Club house.
(Gazette [Montreal], 10 June 1892, p. 8)
McAnulty was officially employed for almost thirty years by the City of Montreal, but over those three decades, he became increasingly associated – however unofficially – with the Royal Montreal Golf Club, such that his obituary notice in the Montreal Herald in 1904 barely mentioned his proper employment, celebrating instead his formative influence on Royal Montreal’s golfers:
Veteran Golfer Dead
Mr. Thomas McAnulty, Sr., Passed Away This Morning
Mr. Thomas McAnulty died this morning at his late residence, Pine Avenue.
The deceased gentleman was a man of vigorous and active personality.
For many years a resident of Montreal, he was doubtless best known as the friend of two generations of golf players, for in his capacity as guardian of Mount Royal Park, he was one of the first in these parts to take an active interest in the game when the Royal Montreal Club had its quarters in Fletcher’s Field.
And he continued to play a better game than many of the youngest and strongest players until last season [1903], when increasing debility forced him to abandon his favorite recreation.
By hundreds of young men, indebted to him for a kindly word of valued advice, he will be gratefully remembered.
(Montreal Herald, 18 March 1904, p. 1)
Figure 50 Carolina McAnulty, Montreal Star, 17 September 1903, p. 16.
It turns out, however, that Thomas McAnulty’s best pupil was not one of the hundreds of young men he advised at Royal Montreal but rather his own daughter, Carolina (Carrie, 1877-1937), who played reigning Canadian Amateur Ladies Golf champion Florence Harvey in the final of the 1904 tournament at the Toronto Golf Club.
Harvey (who is now in the Canadian golf Hall of Fame) won 2 up and 1 to play.
Carrie McAnulty’s father had introduced her to the game around 1897, when he remained at Fletcher’s Field and became a member of the Metropolitan Golf Club after the Royal Montreal Golf Club moved to Dixie:
Miss Carrie McAnulty of Montreal, the runner-up in this year’s championship, began to play golf perhaps seven or eight years ago, but it is only within the last four years that she has given the game any serious attention.
Her first efforts were on the Metropolitan links under the kindly eye of her father, the late Thomas McAnulty, who was one of the pioneers of the royal game in Canada and at the same time one of the best players.
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Miss McAnulty afterwards divided her attention between the Metropolitan links and the links of the Victoria Club at St. Lambert.
Peter Hendrie, the “pro” of the Victoria Club, then became her occasional instructor.
(Montreal Herald, 8 October 1904, p. 10)
From Thomas McAnulty’s claim to have laid out Royal Montreal’s original course, we may infer that he was the one who laid out the six holes in play by the end of 1874 or beginning of 1875. As we know, there seem to have been seven holes by the end of the 1875 season – the additional hole perhaps also having been built by McAnulty. And we also know that by the spring of 1877, there were nine holes – with perhaps the additional holes also having been built by McAnulty.
The first layout on Fletcher’s Field was described on the 50th anniversary of the Club:
The original course began on top of the slope where the policeman’s cottage now stands, opposite what is now [the head of] Duluth Avenue.
The players came downhill towards Pine Avenue for the first hole …
Then [they went] across the roadway [Bleury Street/Park Avenue] …
And they returned paralleling the stone wall of Hotel Dieu.
(Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21)
In 1899, John Taylor reported that on the original course, there was “one green … near the east end of the grounds”: this was presumably the putting green near Pine Avenue indicated above (Montreal Star, 10 February 1899, p. 2).
Does the account above describe the original six-hole course of 1875?
We have a first hole running from east to west and ending at Pine Avenue at the head of Durocher Street at the east end of Fletcher’s Field. And then from Durocher Street, a hole runs east to west across Bleury Street (these two holes were presumably more or less parallel). It would seem that the 3rd and 4th holes ran west along the walls of the Nuns’ property (which extended from Hotel Dieu to the Agricultural Exhibition Grounds). The 5th and 6th holes (the final two holes) would seem to have run from west to east (presumably paralleling the 3rd and 4th holes) on their way back to the starting point of the course.
The image below, sketched no later than 1874, drawn by an artist standing where Bleury Street (formerly a private road, subsequently renamed Park Avenue) ran through Fletcher’s Field, shows Hotel Dieu and the walls separating the Nuns’ property from Fletcher’s Field. We see here the terrain through which the original 3rd and 4th holes were routed just before they were laid out.
Figure 51 Canadian Illustrated News, 24 April 1875.
Fletcher’s Field was part of the estate of Benjamin Hall (1779-1863), who came to Montreal from Andover, Massachusetts, around 1800 and established himself as a farmer, a merchant, and a director (as of 1819) of the Bank of Canada. His house, called Mount Tranquil, overlooked his estate on the northeastern slopes of Mount Royal. This house can be seen in the early 1860s photograph below, which looks toward Mount Royal across the grounds of Hotel Dieu, with Fletcher’s Field lying between the walls of Hotel Dieu and the orchard in front of Mount Tranquil.
Figure 52 Early 1860s photograph in Denis Caron, L’Evolution Historique Du Territoire De La Côté Placide (Montréal : Archives de la Ville de Montréal, 2017), p. 41.
Fletcher’s Field was named after one of Hall’s tenants:
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[To the editor of the Montreal Star] Sir,
There is a movement in certain circles to change the name of Fletcher’s Field, and as the name is quite historical, I desire to protest against any such proposition.
The field, so dear to the young people of Montreal and so fondly remembered by our Golf club, was named after Samuel Fletcher, who came to this country in 1847 from the County Antrim, Ireland. On the 1st of May of that year, he rented land from the late Benjamin Hall, esq., of Mount Tranquil (the site of the old smallpox hospital).
The golf house stands where Mr. S. Fletcher’s stable stood. The Fletcher house was on the line of the Incline Railway and stood at the back of the place where the terminus of this railway was first built. The house was pulled down when the railroad was constructed.
Samuel Fletcher died here and was succeeded in the milk business by his brother James. He died here and was followed by his son James, who sold the business ….
Long may the field retain the good name of Fletcher. Honesty and straightforwardness demand such a monument.
An Old Resident (Montreal Star, 27 December 1895, p. 2)
Fletcher’s Field (or ferme Fletcher) became part of Mount Royal Park in 1873 and was thereafter made more park-like by being cleared (over the course of many years) of houses, farm buildings, and both stone and wooden fences (such as those seen in the photograph below).
Figure 53 Photograph circa 1865 in Caron, p. 40.
Seen below, the 1890 contour map of Mount Royal Park shows the steady slope of Fletcher’s Field downward from about 290 feet above sea level where the Golf House was built in 1881 to about 150 feet above sea level at the Hotel Dieu where its stone wall met Pine Avenue.
Figure 54 1890 map of Montreal.
The view across Fletcher’s Field from the Golf House is suggested by the photograph below.
Figure 55 Undated photograph, in Caron p. 46, taken from a vantage point near the clubhouse of the Royal Montreal Golf Club, looking east northeast across Bleury Street/Park Avenue. The dome on the right side of the photograph marks Hotel Dieu.
The land seen above drops steadily toward the stone wall virtually every step of the way.
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What seems to be a description of the original six-hole course above accords in certain respects with a report in Canadian Golfer magazine about the names of the holes on the first nine-hole course: “In their rotation, these names were: 1 Nursery; 2 Durocher Street; 3 Hill; 4 Nuns; 5 Circus; 6 Elm Tree; 7 Exhibition; 8 Road; 9 Home” (Canadian Golfer, vol 1 no 5 [September 1915], p. 285).
The names of the first four holes reported above suggest the first four holes of the original six hole course: it seems that golfers had reached the head of “Durocher Street” after the first hole and then crossed Bleury Street to move down the “Hill” and westward along the walls marking the Nuns’ property.
The 8th and 9th holes – called “Road” and “Home” – may be the 5th and 6th holes of the original six-hole course.
In between, we find three holes that may be the ones added to the original six to make the Club’s f irst nine-hole course: holes called “Circus,” “Elm Tree,” and “Exhibition.” My guess is that these holes ran down to and back from the Agricultural Exhibition Ground.
But it is not clear that Canadian Golfer’s claim that it provides the names of the original holes is accurate.
Note that at the 25th anniversary celebration of the founding of the club (held at the beginning of 1899), John Taylor recalled of the original course that “there was a hole which was called the gin hole because there was a little shop where refreshments were sold near” (Montreal Star, 10 February 1899, p. 2).
Note that there is no hole named “Gin” in the Canadian Golfer list of the names for the so-called original holes.
Similarly, there is a reference in Club accounts from 1877 to a “Shanty Hole,” yet there is no hole named “Shanty” in the Canadian Golfer list (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21).
Perhaps “The Gin Hole” and “The Shanty Hole” were the same – each being a figurative way of referring to a hole in the vicinity of one of Mount Royal Park’s many refreshment booths. In 1884, a writer in the Montreal Star referred with dismay to the plethora of “refreshment shanties … in Mount Royal Park” (he saw them as “architectural monstrosities”) (Montreal Star, 11 June 1884, p. 2).
Figure 56 "Refreshments Booths," Mount Royal Park. Canadian Illustrated News, 26 August 1876, p. 104.
William Patrick Sloane, an early member of the Quebec Golf Club and a frequent competitor in matches played over Fletcher’s Field, recalled that “Pandy” was the name of another of the original holes. It required a tee shot over a quarry: there was “a deserted stone-quarry – the afterwards famous Montreal ‘Pandy’ – short for Pandemonium” (Montreal Herald, 23 November 1896, p. 5). John Taylor also mentioned this hole at the 25th anniversary celebration in 1899:
In ’76 … Fletcher’s Field … consisted mainly of a great quarry and had long grass and thistles and shrubs to interfere with the game.
There was one pit that was known as pandemonium and, as they used to tee just below it, the hazard was the cause of a great many ridiculous scenes and loss of temper.
(Montreal Star, 10 February 1899, p. 2)
The course that Davis played after his arrival in Montreal in April of 1881 had a hole on it called “The Quarry Hole,” so it would seem that at least this part of the original course had come down to the early 1880s.
Davis left Liverpool on March 31st bound for Halifax. The Club must have wanted him to be on hand by mid-April. He had agreed to arrive in Montreal “as early in April as may be required” (Davis contract, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club). When Bennett Lang replaced Davis in 1893, and when Tom Smith replaced Lang in 1894, they both arrived in May. Since Quebec City’s port could not be counted on to be open before May (the first ship to arrive from Europe in 1881, for example, would not arrive until May 2nd), sailing to Halifax was Davis’s best option.
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After a stop at the Northen Irish port of Moville, the Moravian sailed directly to Halifax, arriving on April 10th.
Figure 57 The Allen Line's S.S. Moravian, circa 1880. The Moravian would be shipwrecked in 1882.
Figure 58 Park Ranger's Lodge. Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 [12 November 1881], p. 309.
Over the next several days, most of the ship’s passengers and much of its cargo were sent on to Montreal by train.
Davis will not even have unpacked his club making tools before play started on Good Friday, April 15th.
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But the course on Fletcher’s Field that Davis played in April was not the course he played in the fall, for during the 1881 season, two events conspired to force the Club to redesign its course.
On the one hand, at the end of April, the City Council approved the construction of a park ranger’s lodge at the eastern end of the orchard that was overlooked by Mount Tranquil house, which had become (soon after expropriation of Hall’s property) the City’s small pox hospital in 1874 and had since then acquired the name St. Roche’s Hospital.
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The Club requested that a special room be constructed in this building for use by the golfers.
The building was under construction throughout the summer of 1881, and the club would use its new room for the first time at the beginning of October to entertain members of the Quebec Golf Club after the fall Challenge Cup match on Fletcher’s Field.
With an abode on the golf course, the Club would have to redesign its layout so that the 1st tee and 9th green would be located in front of the new building.
On the other hand, also in the spring of 1881, the City Council approved the expansion of the Provincial Exhibition Ground (also known as the Agricultural Exhibition Ground and as the Dominion Exhibition Ground) located on the west side of Mount Royal Avenue – a street that had hitherto marked the western end of Fletcher’s Field. During the summer of 1881, new buildings for displaying agricultural implements and agricultural machinery would be constructed on a portion of Fletcher’s Field measuring 800 by 570 feet. This new land acquired from Mount Royal Park was to be joined to the main part of the Exhibition Ground by a 17-foot high bridge over Mount Royal Avenue.
And a further portion of Mount Royal Park would be taken up by construction of a circular horse track: “In the centre [of these new buildings], it is intended to have a ring for the exhibition of horses, both in saddle and carriage…. When the Exhibition is not going, it is proposed to open this ground to the public for horse exercise and so on” (Montreal Star, 16 May 1881, p. 2).
The Club would therefore have to replace and rearrange its holes at the west end of Fletcher’s Field, where the 7th hole, which was called “Exhibition,” and where perhaps both the green of the hole preceding the 7th and the tee of the hole following the 7th, were probably laid out in whole or in part on the land acquired by the Exhibition Ground in 1881.
And so, during the 1881 season, a new golf course was conceived and laid out, but neither the decision to build a lodge for the park ranger nor the decision to construct new Agricultural Exhibition buildings on Fletcher’s Field had been made when the golf season opened, so the Club began play on the course it had used at the conclusion of the 1880 season.
I believe, then, that we have images of the course that Davis played in April of 1881 – probably on the first day of play that year, Good Friday (April 15th) – for much of the 1880 course was depicted at the end of that year in the Canadian Illustrated News magazine, which extensively illustrated play during the Challenge Cup match between the Montreal and Quebec Golf Clubs in the fall of 1880.
Seen below, the main sketch featured in the Canadian Illustrated News looks from west to east (towards Hotel Dieu) across several holes of Fletcher’s Field, the land dropping steadily from right, or south, to left, or north (note that the original illustration consisted of black ink on white paper, whereas the image below has been colourized).
Figure 59 Canadian Illustrated News, vol 22 no 16 (October 1880), p. 244. Several golf holes (in whole or in part) are depicted in this sketch. Appearing in the background are Hotel Dieu and the wall marking the boundary between the Nuns’ property and Fletcher’s Field. Note the slope of the land from right to left (south to north).
Hotel Dieu, the stone walls around it, the buildings stretching westward from Hotel Dieu along St. Urbain Street, and the wooden fence bordering the north side of Fletcher’s Field are all drawn accurately, and depicting the land as sloping from right to left (south to north) is also accurate.
It is not clear, however, that the scenes shown on the golf course are depicted accurately.
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On the one hand, it is possible that in order to represent the kind of things that happen on a golf course, the artist compressed into his sketch two teeing grounds and a putting green that were really much further apart than they are shown to be.
On the other hand, given that holes on the original course were said to have followed the walls along the Nun’s property at the north end of Fletcher’s Field, whereas the sketch seems to show golfers driving away from these walls rather than parallel to them, it is possible that the artist did not understand the game well enough to recognize the target toward which the golfers were actually playing and consequently represented holes inaccurately.
Nonetheless, one might suppose that the hole shown at the top of the main sketch seen above presents golfers on the 4th tee, which would have been located very near the 3rd green: that is, since the 3rd hole was called “The Hill” (which was preceded by 1st and 2nd holes on either side of Bleury Street), I assume that the 3rd hole was played down the hill at the top right of the main sketch to the walls of Hotel Dieu.
Figure 60 Modified detail from the main sketch above.
On the tee depicted in this detail from the main sketch, two golfers – accompanied by two caddies and two spectators (the latter may be a referee and a scorer) – play in the direction marked by the forecaddie.
Shown below are two other golfers (also accompanied by two caddies and two spectators) playing on a hole ostensibly paralleling the one shown above.
Figure 61 Modified detail from the main sketch above.
One of the two putting greens depicted in the Canadian Illustrated News sketches is seen below.
Figure 62 Modified detail from the main sketch above.
Fortunately, there are addition sketches in the Canadian Illustrated News from October of 1880 that look in the opposite direction.
In a sketch called “The Fore-Cadie [sic],” for instance, the artist presents a view across Fletcher’s Field from east to west. In the image below, we see two golfers, two caddies and three spectators in the middle ground and a fore-caddie in the foreground. Deeper in the background, one can see a grand building on the left called the Crystal Palace, as well as another building to the right of it.
Figure 63 Canadian Illustrated News, vol 22 no 16 (October 1880), p. 244.
Figure 64 Crystal Palace circa 1880.
Figure 65 "Driving. Canadian Illustrated News, vol 22 no 16 (October 1880), p. 244.
The Crystal Palace had been built in 1860 between St. Catherine Street and Cathcart Street where these streets are intersected by today’s University Avenue, which was then called Victoria Street.
Purchased by the Province of Quebec in 1877, the Crystal Palace was moved in 1878 to the Provincial Exhibition Grounds in Mile End at the western edge of Fletcher’s Field, which was separated from the Exhibition Ground by Mount Royal Avenue.
The Crystal Palace, as well as several of the buildings around it, can be seen in the photograph below, which dates from approximately the same time as the sketch to the left but looks down on the Crystal Palace and Exhibition Ground from the northeastern slope of Mount Royal.
We also see the Crystal Palace and another of the buildings on the Exhibition grounds from a similar perspective in another sketch, called “Driving.”
Seen below, this sketch looks at the Crystal Palace from the same general direction, but from a slightly different angle – the artist stands on a part of the golf course a little bit further to the right (or south) of the golfers depicted above in “The Fore Cadie” – and we see not one hole in this sketch but two holes.
In so far as the Crystal Palace looms larger in the background of this sketch than it does in “The Fore-Cadie,” the part of the golf course depicted here seems to be closer to the west end of Fletcher’s Field.
Indeed the golfers and caddies in the middle ground of the sketch seen to the left of the driver may well be standing on a putting green at the western limit of the golf course – about as close to Mount Royal Avenue as golfers got. Perhaps they are on the 7th hole: “Exhibition.”
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Another sketch, called “Driving the Quarry hole,” also shows the Crystal Palace in the background.
Figure 66 Canadian Illustrated News, vol 22 no 16 (October 1880), p. 244.
In the sketch to the left, the building in question is shown as further away from the artist than the building in the other two sketches above. But the building seen to the left is less carefully drawn than the building in the other sketches.
Still, the two buildings are shown in virtually the same position relative to the mountain. The only difference is that the flagpole is missing from the sketch of the building in “Driving the Quarry hole.” And so, I take the building shown in the background of “Driving the Quarry hole” to be the Crystal Palace.
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Note below in the enlarged image of the background of this sketch that there is a fore caddie standing with a flag at the western end of Fletcher’s Field: the putting green toward which he is encouraging the golfers to drive must have been fairly close to him. He is depicted close to Mount Royal Avenue.
Figure 67 Detail from the sketch above, "Driving the Quarry hole." The Crystal Palace is coloured pink; the fore caddie is coloured blue; his flag, red.
Apparently, the quarry over which golfers had to drive their tee shots was “a deserted stone quarry – the afterwards famous Montreal ‘Pandy’ – short for Pandemonium” (Montreal Herald, 23 November 1896, p. 5).
Figure 68 John Taylor, 1881.
Note, however, that at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Club, John Taylor described this fearsome “deserted stone-quarry” as merely a pit:
In ’76 … Fletcher’s Field … consisted mainly of a great quarry and had long grass and thistles and shrubs to interfere with the game.
There was one pit that was known as pandemonium and, as they used to tee just below it, the hazard was the cause of a great many ridiculous scenes and loss of temper.
(Montreal Star, 10 February 1899, p. 2)
There was one more sketch of the course in the Canadian Illustrated News: “A Stymy.”
The artist depicts the situation called “a stymy” in which a player’s ball was allowed to block the path to the hole of an opponent’s ball (the stymy was not eliminated from golf until 1953). In doing so, this sketch shows a golf hole on yet another part of Fletcher’s Field.
Figure 69 “A Stymy.” Canadian Illustrated News, vol 22 no 16 (October 1880), p. 244.
Running on an east-west line diagonally through the “Stymy” sketch seen to the left is a fence located at the base of the mountain.
The part of the fence running away from the mountain moves west (right) toward Mount Royal Avenue.
The other end of the fence runs east (left) – and downhill – toward Park Avenue.
The unidentified building in the centre of the sketch (above the head of the golfer wearing the red jacket) may be the residence of Samuel Fletcher, whose house was located where the Incline Railway (built in 1884) begin its ascent of the mountain.
Figure 70 Detail from early 1860s photograph several pages above.
The other building, up to which the fence runs on one side and away from which the fence runs on the other side, may be Fletcher’s stable, which would be replaced by the park ranger’s lodge in 1881 – the building that would become Golf House.
The images below show side-by-side the unidentified building in question and an 1881 image of the park ranger’s lodge – both located along the fence line.
Figure 71 Detail from "A Stimy" and detail from Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 (12 November 1881), p. 309.
If the park ranger’s lodge and future Golf House was indeed built upon the footprint of Fletcher’s stable, then the putting green depicted in the sketch called “A Stymy” would seem to have been close to Pine Avenue, which would suggest that the hole depicted in “A Stymy” was the original 1st hole.
Figure 72 1889 painting of tobogganing on Fletcher’s Field.
The slope of the land down to Pine Avenue made for an excellent tobogganing hill, with an elevated start to the slide being built in front of the Golf House, as in the painting seen to the left.
With the park ranger’s lodge completed late in 1881, and with the Club moving into its room then, the 1st hole was no longer played east toward Pine Avenue but rather south over Bleury Street.​
The 1881 sketch below in Canadian Illustrated News provides an image of golfers playing from the new first tee, which was directly in front of the new park ranger’s lodge (more than a dozen people surround a golfer who prepares to make a drive, his club resting on the ground behind the ball).
Figure 73 Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 (12 November 1881), p. 309.
A variety of animals appear on Fletcher’s Field east of the 1st tee box and well below it. The sketch artist told the editor of Canadian Illustrated News that it was by accident that he came upon the golfers and the animals depicted above:
in the course of his wanderings, he came upon a certain wide expanse of open ground, chiefly tenanted by a worn-out horse or two, some unkempt ponies, many donkeys and a few cows.
While walking meditatively along, he was startled by the cry “Whaup” and beheld a party of gentlemen in brightly hued garments attended by two or three lurcher-looking men in sober raiment and some small urchins bearing fagots of clubs on their shoulders.
(Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 [12 November 1881], p. 307)
Like the artist who painted the tobogganers on the hill sloping down toward Pine Avenue from the Golf House, the sketch artist accurately illustrates that the Golf House was built on a knoll or plateau. The view from the verandah would be celebrated:
On the highest knoll of Fletcher’s Field, at the top of a waving meadow, sheltered in a measure neath the overhanging banks of Mount Royal, rising from a stretch of orchard land and straggling pines, stands the modest but well designed Golf Club [house].
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Looking down from its verandah over the blushing green of new spring grass which looks so rich, so abundant, … one experiences not only a mental delight but a physical exhilaration that renews the youth and stirs a whole world of memories.
Beyond is the smoky city mellowed in soft tints by the sinking sun.
(Montreal Herald, 30 April 1892, p. 1)
The slope down the hill from the new 1st tee in front of the Golf House toward Bleury Street is clearly shown in a photograph from 1890 (seen below) which shows the Golf House next to the Incline Railway station being built then on Bleury Street/Park Avenue (along which traffic runs).
Figure 74 Golf House circa 1890 in Caron, p. 46.
Ideally, the drive from the 1st tee carried Bleury Street. Note also that on each side of this road were ditches that also had to be carried, for both road and ditches were in play. There were fences, too, as wells as “the clouds of suffocating dust which roll[ed] off Bleury Street with the passage of every vehicle” (Montreal Herald and Commercial Gazette, 9 October 1882, p. 2).
This drive from the 1881 first tee seems to have been the same drive from the first tee described by Henry Stanley Smith in 1890: “A bad drive at the first hole out will land on the high road [Bleury Street/Park Avenue], or, what is still more probable, in the ditches which skirt the road on either side” (H. Stanley Smith in Hutchinson, 190-91).
On certain holes, obstacles called “bunkers” had to be carried with the approach shot. The 1881 sketch artist watched players drive on one hole, and then observed their approach shots:
At some distance, we discovered the two little balls lying on the grass ….
The projectiles were sent towards a little red flag, stuck into the turf, on the other side of some rough, uneven ground.
These uneven places are called bunkers ….
(Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 [12 November 1881], p. 307).
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The approach shot in question seems to have been blind, for the golfers, anxious about the outcome of their shots, cried out to the forecaddies ahead: “Had they got over the bunkers or in?” (Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 [12 November 1881], p. 307).
The incursion onto the west end of Fletcher’s Field of the new Exhibition Ground buildings is evident in the detail seen below from the 1881 sketch of the clubhouse and new 1st tee.
Figure 75 Detail from the sketch above of the Golf House, 1st tee, and animals on Fletcher's Field. Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 (12 November 1881), p. 309.
Seen below is an image from 1881 showing the Exhibition ground’s new buildings and horse track in what was called a “Bird’s-Eye-View” map.
Figure 76 Exhibition Grounds in a "Bird's Eye View" map from 1881.
The buildings and horse track shown above were completed well before the end of the 1881 golf season, as was the new park ranger’s lodge in which the Club rented annually a room to be reserved for members’ use (a room that was inaugurated when the Montreal Golf Club hosted the Quebec Golf Club during the Challenge Cup match on Fletcher’s Field at the beginning of October 1881).
And so, the new layout had to be in play during the 1881 season. In fact, the Challenge Cup match between the Montreal and Quebec Golf Clubs on Fletcher’s Field in October of 1881 took place on his new layout, which is seen below on a map of “Montreal Golf Grounds” dated 1882.
Figure 77 "Montreal Golf Grounds, 1882."
On the map above, the distance of each hole seems to have been written in the middle of each of the lines marking the holes, but these figures are illegible. Yet if this course is the same one that Willie Davis said in 1891 was “barely one mile [1,760 yards] round,” and if the length of the holes on the map was drawn according to scale, then the lengths of the holes were approximately as follows: 1, 155 yards; 2, 155 yards; 3, 300 yards; 4, 180 yards; 5, 210 yards; 6, 200 yards; 7, 140 yards; 8, 205 yards; 9, 255 yards (New York Herald, 30 August 1891). Given that in the 1880s and 1890s, a good drive of the gutta-percha ball was understood to go from 175 to 200 yards, one can appreciate the prediction made by Henry Stanley Smith regarding the score that would probably be made on the Montreal course by the top professional and amateur players of 1890: on “the Montreal and Quebec links …, a good drive and an iron shot will, in most cases, bring you to the putting green …. A Willy Park or John Ball, junior, would cover either of these links in an average of four with little trouble” (Hutchinson, Famous Golf Links, p. 191). In October of 1882, mind you, the best amateur golfer in Canada, A.W. Smith, shot an 86 – which was by four shots the best score at the interprovincial competition between Quebec and Ontario that month.
Since the nine-hole course shown on the map above must have been laid out during the course of the 1881 season, I presume that Davis had a role in designing it.
Davis had agreed to arrive in Montreal “as early in April as may be required” and to begin “playing … from the date of my arrival” (Davis contract, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club). This agreement to play as soon as he arrived was an agreement to teach as soon as he arrived, for the method of instruction then required the professional to accompany players for a round of golf (playing alongside them): “for teaching beginners, his charge was to be a shilling (or twenty f ive cents) a round of nine holes, one-third of which was to be returned to the club” (Gazette [Montreal] 22 October 1921, p. 21). The Club’s secretary encouraged members to avail themselves of this opportunity for professional instruction:
MONTREAL GOLF CLUB, 1881
The playing Season having now commenced, the Committee beg to intimate to the Members of the Club that a professional Golf player, MR W.F. DAVIS, has been brought from England to give instruction in the game.
He is now at the service of members and arrangements for play can be made with him between 9 and 10 o’clock in the forenoon at Mr. Payne’s, No. 687 Craig Street or at the Club Rooms at 2 o’clock p.m.
It is very desirable that all players, but more especially new players, should avail themselves of the services of the professional, who may be here for this season only.
(courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club)
Davis must have played regularly and often on the two Fletcher’s Field layouts that were used in 1881.
But at some point that year, Club Captain Alexander Dennistoun complained to Davis that his greenkeeping was not meeting expectations. He informed Davis that “one principal object we had in getting you here was that our new and rough green might be made as like the long-made green as can be done” (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21).
Dennistoun and Davis disagreed about the final clause of the latter’s contract with the Club: “It shall be part of my business to put & ke[ep] the green in order as well as the p[utting] holes.”
Figure 78 Davis handwritten contract, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club. Two words are cut off in the above image: the f irst seems to be the word "keep"; the second begins with the letter “p” and may the word “putting.”
For the sake of the official record, Dennistoun rehearsed their debate in a letter he sent to Davis:
It was supposed that as soon as the green was put into your care you would take some interest and pride in having it as perfect as possible.
I instanced to you that Tom Morris and David Park both personally did at St. Andrews and Musselburgh the same kind of work we expected from you here.
You replied that Morris, at Hoylake, had charge of that green but that he paid a man for doing manual work.
You must understand that his position there and yours here are very different.
He has a club of 500 members to attend to, with a green made for twenty years.
Our club of 25 members requires, compared to the other club, little time, and one principal object we had in getting you here was that our new and rough green might be made as like the long-made green as can be done.
(Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21)
The original wording of the contract – “It shall be part of my business to keep the green in order” – is significantly different from the revised wording: “It shall be part of my business to put & keep the green in order” (emphasis added). I wonder if the revision of Davis’s job description to include the responsibility to “put” the golf course in order is a sign that during the hiring process in the winter of 1881, the Club had begun to anticipate the need for a new course to be laid out that year and wanted the language of the contract to allow the Club to direct Davis to “put” the new holes in order.
In the conversation recorded between Dennistoun and Davis, it is odd to find Dennistoun exaggerating the age of the Hoylake course to a person who had lived beside it for every year of its existence. Dennistoun says that Royal Liverpool had “a green made for twenty years” – a wildly inaccurate claim. Royal Liverpool’s nine-hole course at Hoylake dated from 1869, ostensibly making these nine holes 12 years old in 1881, but the course had been changed dramatically in 1871 as Jack Morris revised it to create an 18-hole championship layout. The new course was in play by the summer of that year, which means that when Dennistoun argued with Davis, Royal Liverpool had “a green made for ten years” – not twenty!
Davis knew these facts, and Dennistoun must have known them, too, for he was a Royal Liverpool member. He played in the Club’s opening meeting in April of 1875, for instance, when Davis himself was caddying at the Club just before Jack Morris took him on as an apprentice (Liverpool Weekly Mercury [England], 24 April 1875, p. 8). Dennistoun seems not to have let the facts get in the way of his attempt to make Davis undertake regular manual labour.
I suspect that the dispute between Dennistoun and Davis concerned not so much Davis’s willingness to “keep” the old holes from 1874 in order (the original holes, that is, that remained part of the new 1881 layout) but rather Davis’s unwillingness to put the newly built holes in order.
Dennistoun’s practical advice to Davis implies as much:
If you take every afternoon a wheelbarrow and spade or the small lawnmower and take the green [i.e. walk the golf course] from hole to hole, removing all objectionable obstacles and cutting all the grass that can be cut, you would soon have the green [i.e. the golf course] in a very different state from what it is.
(Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21)
Work of the sort Dennistoun recommends will almost certainly have been performed on the original holes for seven years by the time of his argument with Davis. Most “objectionable obstacles” had probably already been removed from the original holes by 1881. And grass on the original holes had probably already been cut wherever possible for seven years.
I doubt that Dennistoun was suggesting that one man walking the golf course each afternoon with a wheelbarrow, spade, and small lawnmower would soon have all nine holes of the seven year-old course in a very different state from what it was. He probably wanted Davis to make the new holes “as like the long-made green as can be done.”
Although Davis did not return to the Club in the spring of 1882, it seems that before the end of the 1882 golf season, Dennistoun’s wish that the golf course “be made as like the long-made green as can be done” came true, for when the Montreal Golf Club hosted the first interprovincial golf competition between Quebec and Ontario in October, competitors not only agreed that the course was in great shape – “The Ontario men, although defeated, were delighted with the excellent condition of the green” (Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 9 October 1882, p. 2) – but also compared it to venerable long-made greens:
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They [members of the Montreal Golf Club] spared neither trouble nor expense, and it would be difficult to say too much as to the superb condition of their green [i.e. “golf course”].
Their putting greens were simply perfect and would have done credit to St. Andrews or Westward Ho!
(Montreal Chronicle and Commercial Shipping Gazette, 11 October 1882, p. 1)
Figure 79 Photograph of competitors in the 1882 Interprovincial Golf Match at the Montreal Golf Club. Players pose on the verandah of Golf House. I put an "x" above the young man who may be Willie Davis, who had just celebrated his 20th birthday. The person in question seems to be the youngest adult in the photograph – by a considerable margin, for he is virtually the only one without distinct facial hair.
Had Davis acceded to Dennistoun’s demands at some point during the 1881 season – walking the course with wheelbarrow, spade, and small lawnmower and thereby improving the course sufficiently to have produced the accolades from interprovincial competitors a year later?
Since the 1921 publication of Dennistoun’s letter to Davis, the assumption seems to have been that Davis was not rehired in the spring of 1882 because of the dispute about his greenkeeping responsibilities. But the reason he did not return for the 1882 season is not clear.
In a letter to Club members dated 29 April 1881, the secretary introduced Davis and explained why members should not delay arranging for lessons from him: “It is very desirable that all members, but more especially new players, should avail themselves of the professional, who may be here for this season only” (Charles James Sidey, letter to members: “Montreal Golf Club, 1881,” 29 April 1881, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club, emphasis added).
From the beginning, well before any question of the quality of Davis’s greenkeeping had arisen, everyone at the Club was aware that Davis might be in Montreal for one season only. It is unclear whether this uncertainty about his future was because Davis did not know whether he would want to stay or because the Club did not know whether it would want to keep him or could afford to do so.
Note, however, that in an essay on the history of the Royal Montreal Golf Club published in Canadian Golfer magazine in 1915, a writer using the pseudonym “Niblick” indicates that Davis was the one who made the decision that he would not return to the Club: “Davis … has the distinction of being the first professional imported into the American continent. At the end of the f irst season, however, Davis decided that the game had not advanced far enough to make the position a lucrative one and, consequently, he severed his connection” (Canadian Golfer, vol 1 no 5 [September 1915], p. 287).
Still, is also possible that Davis finished his term at the Club in 1881 having worked on the course in the way that Dennistoun expected and that he subsequently decided that a second year of such work was not for him. In fact, there is reason to wonder whether he might have shied away from hard physical labour with a wheelbarrow and spade because of health problems, for in an 1887 letter, Davis explained that heart problems had become so serious for him as to prevent him from making golf clubs and playing sports:
Figure 80 Erie Medical Association building.
Gazette (Monreal), 12 March 1887, p. 2.
Montreal, August 21st, 1887
Dr. Le Mon, of the Erie M & S.A. of Buffalo, N.Y.
Dear Sir,
I feel it a pleasure to address you these few lines to state the benefits received from your treatment last year [1886].
It was with little hope of success, as I had been told by a well known Montreal doctor that I would probably not live three months as I had an affection of the heart and felt very low spirited.
However, I am pleased to say: after your treatment, I am myself again and can do my work without difficulty, and the pain at the heart is entirely gone, and I can now engage in outdoor games with success, which I could not do before ….
[I] strongly recommend all fellow sufferers to try your treatment and feel confident of your ability to cure them.
Believe me,
Yours etc.
W.F. Davis
1202 St. James Street, Montreal
Golf Club Maker
(Ottawa Daily Citizen, 23 August 1887, p. 4)
The Erie Medical & Surgical Association published Davis’s letter in 1887 advertisements and added a postscript to it: “Mr. Davis has won eight out of ten competitions at golf since his medical treatment and recovery” (Ottawa Daily Citizen, 23 August 1887, p. 4).
When asked to return to the Club for the 1889 season, Davis remained focused on his health:
In the spring of 1889, the Green Committee of the Royal Montreal Golf Club asked me to go back with them.
I accepted the offer, thinking that a change to the open air for six months would benefit me, which it did to a considerable extent.
(William F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club)
Note also that although Davis did not work as a golf professional for the Club in 1882, he had certainly not become persona non grata there. Indeed, he was still seen on the golf course. For example, when the first interprovincial competition between Quebec and Ontario was held on Fletcher’s Field in October of 1882, Davis partnered with Dennistoun in a celebrated exhibition match after the official competition was over:
At the conclusion of the match, some good foursomes were arranged, the principal one being Dennistoun and the Montreal professional, Davis, against A.W. Smith and Mr. Stewart, of Glasgow, Scotland, resulting in a victory for the latter by two holes.
In this match, the play of Messrs. Smith and Davis was very much admired and in order that they should have full scope for their skill, a “single” was arranged, which attracted much attention and resulted in a “tie.”
(Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 9 October 1882, p. 2)
There seem to have been no hard feelings between Davis and Dennistoun.
Similarly, in 1887, it was reported that Davis had played in 10 golf competitions in Montreal between 1886 and 1887 (Ottawa Daily Citizen, 23 August 1887, p. 4). Yet there are no newspaper reports of these competitions. They may have been matches in which Davis partnered with a Club member (as he had partnered with Dennistoun in the fall of 1882) in a foursomes match against two other Club members or against golfers visiting from Scottish or English clubs. But whatever the case may have been, Davis seems to have maintained good relations with the Club.
And so, we can see that Davis did not return to Hoylake after the 1881 season but rather stayed in Montreal. He worked as a maker of golf clubs and golf balls. Was the prospect of custom from the approximately fifty golfers resident in Quebec in 1882 (relatively evenly divided between the Quebec and Montreal Golf Clubs) what kept Davis in Canada?
Or was it the fact that he fell in love with a young woman named Mary McKinnon.
Davis married her in 1883. Born around 1860, descending from Scottish and French-Canadian families, she was raised in the Eastern Ontario counties of Glengarry and Prescott that run along the border between the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. This was farmland located 20 to 40 miles north of the Ontario and Quebec border with upper New York State.
Born to the couple in Montreal were Esther (1886-1902) and John Andrew (1889-1908), and born to the couple in Newport, Rhode Island, were Lawrence Webster (1893-1967) and William Russell (1895-1945).
Note, however, that in the 1900 U.S. census, Mary Davis is recorded as having had 8 children, and that in the 1910 U.S. Census she is recorded as having had 6. The couple clearly had an unknown number of children born in Montreal who died before the family moved to the United States in 1893. Esther is known to have died in Montreal and was buried in 1892 in Mount Royal Cemetery, next to the Fletcher’s Field golf course. And Cemetery records indicate that “an infant boy of William Davis” was buried there 24 May 1886 (although it is not certain that this William Davis was our Willie Davis). The likelihood that the couple had infants and toddlers buried in Mount Royal Cemetery may have been one of the reasons that Mary Davis decided to bury her husband there in 1902 instead of in the United States, where they had lived since 1893.
In Montreal, as the Davis family grew, Willie made money as a “golf club and ball maker” – this is the phrase used in Montreal city directories as of at least 1884. At other times, he is listed as a cabinetmaker or simply as a manufacturer. He also worked in the late 1880s and early 1890s for the Bell Telephone Company. His residence and his place of business varied, for he and Mary moved several times between 1883 and 1892 (in city directories from that time, I find the couple living at three different addresses, all within a mile or two of the golf course).
And so, after he left the Montreal Golf Club at the end of the 1881 season, Davis retained some sort of access to the golf course – at least as a competitor in certain matches, and perhaps also as an instructor. He must have remained personally well-known to Club members who hired him to make and repair golf clubs and golf balls.
But perhaps he had little to do with the great condition of the course during the 1882 season.
Might it have been McAnulty who produced a course in “superb condition” in 1882, with “simply perfect” putting greens? Was he the one who, during the 1882 season, made Fletcher’s Field “as like the long-made green as can be”? And was it the regular sight of the Park Ranger and his crew walking from hole to hole with wheelbarrows, spades, and small lawnmowers that led members of the public to complain that McAnulty was doing too much work for the Montreal Golf Club?
Running as a thread through all of McAnulty’s various activities as Park Ranger was a general responsibility to help transform the northeastern part of the Park’s property from abandoned farms into an Olmsted-designed park allowing for safe and easy public use and enjoyment. From the beginning, this responsibility dovetailed with the Montreal Golf Club’s interest to turn neglected farmland into a proper golf course.
But since Mount Royal Park was a public space, the golf course would be used most of the time by others (recall that the Club initially played only on Wednesdays and Saturdays) – with these “others” ranging from casual pedestrians and picnickers to well-organized groups who played lacrosse, baseball, cricket, soccer, croquet, and so on.
The hard work faced alike by Park Ranger McAnulty and the Montreal Golf Club was described in W.P. Sloane’s 1896 essay “Golf in Canada,” in which he outlined improvements the Club made to Fletcher’s Field over the course of 23 years:
From the outset, the club set to work to improve the ground for golf purposes and gradually transformed a rough, neglected, deserted-looking conglomeration of broken, rocky, grassy ground, and long, dusty road, bordered on one side by dust heaps and a deserted stone-quarry … into a well-kept, turf-covered Park property ….
(W.P. Sloane, “Golf in Canada,” The Week [Toronto, Ontario], vol 13 no 51 [13 November 1896], p. 1215)
All the club’s “work to improve the ground for golf purposes,” however, was work on “Park property.”
What was McAnulty’s contribution to the production of the “well-kept, turf-covered Park property” that served as a golf course?
As we know, in 1898, McAnulty was quoted as having proudly recalled “the putting-ground he … laid down a quarter of a century ago on Fletcher’s Field” (Canadian Gazette [London], cited in Toronto Saturday Night, 10 December 1898, p. 10). Did he really say the words, “putting ground,” or did a reporter unfamiliar with golf vocabulary put this odd phrase into his mouth? Perhaps McAnulty had explained that he had laid out the original “putting greens” and the reporter turned this phrase into “putting ground.”
Recall that “Thomas McAnulty, gardener,” was well known before he was hired to work as a Park Ranger, so it would have made sense for the Club to have consulted an expert like him about how to grow and treat grass suitable for a putting green.
But after this original work, what was it in his subsequent work for the Club as a Park Ranger that led to complaints from McGibbon and members of the public alike that he “did more work for the Golf Club than for the Park Commissioners” (Daily Witness [Montreal], 9 June 1885, p. 4).
As we know, this complaint emerged as the golf season was beginning in the spring of 1885, so one infers that the behaviour complained of dated from a pattern of work for the Club observed no later than 1884 – and perhaps well before then.
In 1879, a description by the editor of The Daily Witness of efforts by the Montreal Golf Club to improve the golf course in the late 1870s refers to projects that might well have involved supervision by McAnulty:
The Montreal Golf Club has been at considerable expense to improve Fletcher’s Field – a very excellent golf ground, by the way – in the way of guiding water courses and otherwise making it more available as pleasure ground.
Being much annoyed by the common traffic of carts and other vehicles which destroyed the grass, they made representations by a delegation to the [Park] commissioners to the effect that the grass was being destroyed by this indiscriminate traffic and were told in answer that posters might be put up warning all pedestrians to keep on the roads, but as these posters would cost money, the Club would have to be at the expense of them.
This was as much to say that a park which had cost millions was not worth a dollar or two to protect from destruction that portion of it which is most valuable and best used.
(Daily Witness [Montreal], 7 May 1879, p. 4)
Given that McGibbon and his fellow Park Rangers supervised all improvement projects within the Park boundaries – especially concerning the routing and construction of roads, walking paths, and bridle paths – they no doubt also supervised the routing of drainage ditches across Fletcher’s Field.
And the particular job that ostensibly fell to the Montreal Golf Club – the responsibility for controlling the “traffic of carts and other vehicles” on Fletcher’s Field – was in the normal course of events a responsibility that properly fell to McAnulty. As we know from newspaper reports (reviewed above), from the earliest days of the Park, McAnulty was tasked with patrolling its northeast end (the reason, presumably, that he was the Ranger who became the inhabitant of the park ranger’s lodge on the northeastern portion of the park).
The Park Ranger criticized below in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper was probably McAnulty, policing the pathways across Fletcher’s Field in his distinctive way:
Figure 81 Undated postcard showing view from benches placed by a Club member near Golf House. “To the Editor of the Gazette: Sir, On visiting Fletcher’s Field on Saturday, I noticed some half-dozen benches placed under the shade of trees and on making enquiries of the Park Ranger was informed they were placed there by one of the members of the Golf Club for weary travellers.” Gazette (Montreal), 8 September 1885, p. 5.
Must be Put a Stop to
To the editor of the Star
Sir …
I … have cause to complain of the incivility received from one of the Park Rangers.
Last Monday night, my wife and I went to the orchard in Fletcher’s Field to enjoy the refreshing breeze and whilst sitting on one of the seats near the recently made road, she was suddenly startled by seeing a Park Ranger standing behind me, who asked us what we were doing there and threatened to arrest us as it was after 9 o’clock
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And on my telling him that I was ignorant as to the bylaw prohibiting people there after that hour and also added that it was my wife who was with me, he replied very insolently that I should make myself acquainted with the bylaws and that he didn’t give a ---- who was with me: she was no good or she would not be there.
Now, Mr. Editor, I think such language as this is outrageous and something should be done to protect respectable people from the insolence of these uncultivated fellows….
ANOTHER ENGLISHMAN
(Montreal Star, 16 July 1890, p. 4)
A Park Ranger who treated trespassing adults this way would have been even more peremptory in his treatment of trespassing boys!
As we know, the editor of The Daily Witness drew attention in 1879 to fact that money spent by the Club on the improvement of Fletcher’s Field was benefiting the community as a whole, and the same point was made by the editor of the Montreal Star in 1892:
The Royal Montreal Golf Glub annually spends a large sum in cutting the grass and keeping the links in order, an improvement which is much appreciated by the croquet, lacrosse and football players, including pater and mater familias … who, no doubt, duly render thanks to our City Fathers, crediting their thoughtfulness with the improved character of the grass and the smoothness of the greens, instead of blessing the Royal Golfers, who are the real benefactors.
(Montreal Star, 7 November 1892, p. 3)
McAnulty may well have regarded the various work that he did for the Montreal Golf Club in the same way that the local newspaper editors regarded the Club’s work on Fletcher’s Field: their contributions to “the improved character of the grass and the smoothness of the greens” was as a benefactor of the public as a whole, not just golfers.
But regardless of whether Davis or McAnulty was most responsible for the superb condition of the golf course in 1882, there is the question of who was responsible for the new layout.
With Davis on hand throughout the 1881 season, it is difficult to imagine that he was not consulted about where the new holes should be located and how they should be designed.
If the 1881 course endured largely unchanged until 1890 (and I have found no information about changes to the course during those years), then we have Henry Stanley Smith’s brief description of four of the 1881 holes in his contribution to Hutchinson’s Famous Golf Links (1891):
A bad drive at the first hole out will land on the high road [Bleury Street/Park Avenue], or, what is still more probable, in the ditches which skirt the road on either side.
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At the second hole, a clean carry of at least 120 yards is a necessity, as there is no short cut either to the right or left, and the intermediate space is all bunker together.
Probably the prettiest drive on the green is over an avenue of towering elm-trees and at this hole, the forecaddie, almost as a matter of course, places himself under the trees and waits for the ball till it descends upon him from the heights above.
It is a drive which requires a good deal of execution, as the ball must not only be hit hard but well lofted.
The St. Leon hole is also a good hole, as a veritable hay crop extends for at least a hundred yards in front of the tee and forms as horrid a bunker as the heart of the golfer can dislike.
(H. Stanley Smith in Hutchinson, 190-91)
Although Stanley Smith describes just four holes, each of them shares a common characteristic: a cross bunker that has to be carried with the drive.
We recognize here a fundamental principle of penal golf course architecture.
Perhaps the Club decided to follow the design philosophy established by James Hunter on Cove Fields.
As we know, in the spring of 1889, Willie Davis was hired again by what had become known since 1884 as the now Royal Montreal Golf Club. As would be the case for golf professionals at virtually all northern golf clubs over the next four decades, Davis’s contracts were for six or seven months – the months from April/May to October/November when playing golf was possible.
In the off-season, Willie worked at other jobs – indicating, for instance, that in his final years in Montreal he was employed by the Bell Telephone Company “for the winter” (William F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club).
Before leaving Montreal to take up employment with the Newport Golf Club as of 1 March 1893, Davis had probably been involved in more redesign work for the Club, both on Fletcher’s Field and elsewhere.
In 1892, during what would unexpectedly prove to be Davis’s final year at the Club, a women’s golf club was established within the Royal Montreal Golf Club, the original plan being to provide a special course for these (approximately 50) new members:
Figure 82 Photograph circa early 1860s in Caron, p. 42.
In the pretty reach of meadow over the brow of the hill [on which the Golf House was built], a special course has been planned for the ladies.
This will afford a shorter but none the less pleasant and attractive field for the gentler members to prepare for the innumerable competitions which are sure to spring up.
​
(Montreal Herald, 30 April 1892, p. 2)
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​As shown in the early 1860s photograph to the left, the ladies’ course would be laid out in the “meadow” behind the clubhouse – the part of Benjamin Hall’s estate that Mount Tranquil overlooked. This part of Hall’s property included open fields and orchards.
Since Davis had already laid out a well-received ladies’ course for the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in 1891, it is likely that he was charged with the responsibility for planning the ladies’ course on the meadow behind the Golf House.
And by 1890, there were threats to the future of the main course on Fletcher’s Field that probably had the Club consulting Davis about alternatives to the layout.
On the one hand, in 1890, the City of Montreal began an extensive quarrying of black limestone at the east end of Fletcher’s Field, the pit and its related infrastructure eventually running right up to the 1st hole, a fact that led the Club to create a special local rule to deal with balls hit into it. In 1892, “It was fully thirty feet deep, some parts of it filled with water, and there [was] no fence around it to prevent accidents” (Montreal Star, 22 September 1892, p. 2). At the end of that year, a visitor to Montreal wrote a letter to the editor of the Montreal Star to express his disgust at what the city had done:
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As I stood about the point where Park and Pine avenues intersect, and looked northwest over the “plateau” [Fletcher’s Field] stretching before me, instead of my eye taking in a field of emerald turf, intersected by gravel walks winding hither and thither amongst tree and shrub disposed over its surface, I perceived in the near foreground naught but unkempt grass and weeds, flanked to the right of me by the high bare walls of the enclosure of an adjoining convent [Hotel Dieu], and, in the distance, but well within the limits of vision, a quarry pit hemmed in by unsightly sheds and a puffing “billy” at work, vomiting forth its clouds of steam and smoke.
Figure 83 “Puffing Billy" was an early locomotive (1813-14) that worked in British mines. The photograph above shows what was called a "sister" of "Puffing Billy" called "Wylam Dilly" at work in Britian in 1862.
To the left of me, situated on an appropriate knoll, under the shadow of the mountain, stands a somewhat picturesque looking cottage (the Golf House, I am told) – almost hidden from view, however, and its effect totally marred by a squalid looking hut – a stove pipe projecting through the gable – in its immediate vicinity.
Who, sir, is responsible for this outrage?
(Montreal Star, 13 November 1890, p. 2)
On the other hand, in 1891, the city also approved the development of Esplanade Avenue on the south side of Fletcher’s Field – a project requiring the Park Commissioners to cede 46 feet of Fletcher’s Field for the development of a road and two-storey residences alongside it.
Figure 84 Undated late 1890s or early 1900s postcard showing Esplanade Avenue, its newly planted trees on each side, and its sidewalks. Fletcher's Field runs diagonally through the centre of the image. A military review is underway.
And so, the golf course was losing land on Fletcher’s Field to the east and south. Davis is likely to have been asked by the Club for advice on how it might cope with these incursions onto its golf ground.
Figure 85 Fields on the mountain top where the Club considered laying out a course in 1893 can be seen behind the Park Ranger's house.
One option that the Club explored with the City in 1893 was the possibility of laying out a golf course in the fields that Chief Park Ranger McGibbon had been farming on the west side of the Park – the plan being to use his residence as a clubhouse just as the park ranger’s lodge had been used as a clubhouse.
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The anonymous Montreal Gazette historian of 1921writes of these plans:
“One of the most interesting moves of the latter years while the Club was yet located on Fletcher’s Field was to lay out on the mountain top an experimental course over which several members played in an endeavor to ascertain if it would prove a suitable location” (Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21). Had Davis laid out this experimental course in 1892?
This plan would be aborted and McGibbon’s fields would remain his personal farm until he retired in the mid-1890s.
Well before 1893, because the Club had become Increasingly worried by the prospect of seriously injuring visitors to Mount Royal Park who enjoyed strolling on Fletcher’s Field, members experimented with golf elsewhere. In 1887, the Montreal Gazette reported as follows:
ROYAL MONTREAL GOLF CLUB
A number of the members of this club played at Laprairie on Dominion Day for a silver medal presented by the captain of the club.
The match was a very pleasant one. The thermometer was a little high, but there was a delicious breeze off the water, and some good play was shown.
Mr. John Taylor was the winner with the fine scratch score of 89.
(Gazette [Montreal], 5 July 1897, p. 8)
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​In 1888, some members of the club became quite serious about this experiment:
Figure 86 Andrew Robertson (1827-1890), 1864.
EXPERIMENTAL GOLFING GROUND
A party of twelve gentlemen, members of the Montreal Golf Club, have leased the residence and grounds of Mr. Andrew Robertson at Laprairie for one year for the use of themselves and friends as a resort for golf players.
It is something of an experiment and, if satisfactory, may lead to the establishment of a permanent golf headquarters across the river.
(Montreal Daily Witness, 9 July 1888, p. 5)
Robertson (a Scottish immigrant who became a successful dry goods merchant, governor of the Montreal General Hospital, president of the Royal Canadian Insurance company, president of the Montreal Board of Trade, first president
of the Bell Telephone Company, chairman of the Montreal Harbour Commission, and so on) owned a country residence “situated a mile above Laprairie,” a village located on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal (Montreal Star, 17 April 1886, p. 6). Robertson’s property was at the riverside, which made it susceptible to great flooding damage in the spring of 1886: “The fences on Mr. Robertson’s property have been carried away and the whole country for miles back is covered with water and ice” (Montreal Star, 17 April 1886, p. 6).
Members of the Club continued to play at Laprairie until at least 1890. Proper tournaments involving the Club’s regular competitors were held that summer, and several significant prizes were offered to the winners.
In a newspaper report describing the Club’s competitions on this course, it was observed that “a good course had previously been laid out” at Laprairie (Gazette [Montreal], 3 July 1890, p. 8). Of course, Davis was the Club’s golf professional once more as of the spring of 1889, and so one wonders whether he was the one responsible for the “good course” – perhaps having been asked to improve the original 1887 course at Laprairie.
Figure 87 Unsated late nineteenth-century photograph of the wharf at Laprairie with the village in the background.
In the early 1890s, most of the Club’s members thought the Laprairie layout was at too great a distance from the City and was too inconvenient of access to serve as the Club’s permanent golf course: a boat trip across the St. Lawrence was necessary to reach the village and then the grounds of Robertson’s residence were still another mile away.
And so, nothing came of the Laprairie experiment.
But sometime between the end of the 1892 season and the beginning of the 1893 season, the Club decided to lay out a new course – partly on Fletcher’s Field, and partly on the land where the ladies’ course had been planned.
An early spring in 1893 meant that play began on the same course that had been used at the end of 1892: “Playing commenced on the 25th of March. The links were pretty wet with patches of snow upon them at intervals. Few of the holes were clear, but the whole course was played over” (Montreal Daily Herald, 13 December 1893, p. 5).
The local rules approved by the Royal Montreal Golf Club in mid-March (just before the first round of the year) allow us to see how the encroaching City was impacting the playing of the game on Fletcher’s Field:
The local rules for the Montreal Club were adopted as follows:
1. In all matches, a round shall be 18 holes, unless otherwise decided.
2. Should a ball be driven into the City quarry, it may either be played as it lies, dropped straight behind the obstacle under the penalty of one stroke, or dropped on the [fair] green [that is, the fairway] in a line at right angles with the spot where the ball lies under the penalty of two strokes.
3. Should a ball be driven into the Exhibition Grounds, the ball, or, if it cannot be recovered, another ball, shall be dropped two clubs’ length from the fence as near the spot as possible where it entered, under the penalty of one stroke.
4. Should a ball be driven over or through the fence at the St. Leon Hotel, the ball, or, if it cannot be recovered, another ball, shall be dropped on the links two clubs’ lengths from the fence as near as possible where it entered, under the penalty of two strokes.
5. Should the ball fall among the bushes between the Gibraltar Hole and the Meadow Hole, it may be brought out opposite where it lay and dropped two clubs’ lengths from the bushes, under the penalty of two strokes….
(Montreal Star, 20 March 1893, p. 5)
Davis played his last round at Montreal on this course on 28 October 1892 when he engaged in the last of his seven matches against A.W. Smith. Since 1882, they had each won two matches and drawn two others, and in October of 1892, Davis had won at Quebec by three holes and then two weeks later Smith won at Montreal by three holes, so the October 28th match attracted a large crowd of spectators both from Montreal and from Quebec. This match was decided on the 9th hole, which was a two-shot hole bordered by an orchard along the right side:
Figure 88 W.F. Davis (left) and A.W. Smith, probably October 1892. The Golfer, vol 2 no 2 (December 1895), p. 51.
On the 28th October, the dead heat [between A.W. Smith and W.F. Davis] was played off on Montreal Green in a drenching rain, the match being arranged for eighteen holes….
At the seventeenth hole, they were all even.
[On the 18th hole,] Mr. Smith, in his drive, landed to the right in the orchard, and had a bad lie, while Davis lay well for a nice approach.
To the surprise of all, Mr. Smith laid the ball dead with his niblick and Davis was short.
Mr. Smith thus won the hole and the match.
(Golf [London], vol 5 no 115 [25 November 1892], p. 176)
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After this account of the match, the Club Secretary J. Hutton Balfour (who had acted as referee for this competition) wrote: “It is hoped that some more matches of this kind will be arranged next year, as already, as a result of this match, there are several gentlemen applying for membership to both clubs, having got bitten” (Golf [London], vol 5 no 115 [25 November 1892], p. 176).
Balfour may have known that Davis had already been invited to Newport to discuss laying out a golf course for the new golf club being planned there (Davis would travel to Newport less than two weeks after the match described above), but Balfour clearly had no idea that Davis would be offered a job by the Newport Golf Club: he expected more matches between Davis and Smith in 1893.
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Neither did Davis have any idea that he had played his final match against Smith. At the banquet after the interprovincial competition, Davis said that Smith “was the best man he had ever met” on a golf course and “he … hoped to meet him again” (Gazette [Montreal], 31 October 1892, p. 5). Between 1882 and 1892, they had come to admire each other a great deal, as they revealed in their speeches at the banquet:
Mr. Smith declared that nothing pleased him better than meeting Mr. Davis [on the golf course], who was, as far as he knew, the only professional in the country.
He was a strong player and a hard man to beat.
Mr. Davis affirmed that, although he had many times played with other prominent golfers, he never enjoyed any game better than he did those he played with Mr. Smith, who played golf as it should be played and took no advantage.
Although beaten today, he would not be afraid to meet Mr. Smith at any other time.
(Montreal Star, 31 October 1892, p. 3)
They both played in the 1895 and 1896 U.S. Open competitions (Smith tying for 3rd each time, Davis finishing 5th and 13th, 2 strokes and 9 strokes behind Smith, respectively), but they were never paired together.
At the 1892 banquet, Davis, who had supplied golf clubs to the Tuxedo Golf Club, New Jersey, in 1889, had laid out a men’s course and women’s course for the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in 1891, and who was about to travel to Newport, Rhode Island, to help set up a golf club there, predicted the future:
[By Davis,] a suggestion was … made that seemed to meet with general approval.
It was that an open championship should be given, open to America and Canada.
Such cities as Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, Ottawa, and Kingston could contribute to the trophy.
Davis’s proposition was that the match should be thirty-six holes on strokes, and as there were several new clubs forming in the United States, he predicted international matches as well as interprovincial ones in the near future.
(Gazette [Montreal], 31 October 1892, p. 5)
Six months later, Davis was hardly settled in Newport when a hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake wrote to the Toronto Golf Club proposing to host a tournament that would include not just team matches but also “an individual match” to determine a champion among the Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Kingston, and Niagara-on-the-Lake competitors (this proposal would eventuate in the International championship of 1895, when A.W. Smith was beaten by one hole by Charles Blair MacDonald, who would win the U.S. Amateur Championship a month later). At Newport, Davis no doubt encouraged Theodore Havemeyer to organize the first attempt at a national championship in the fall of 1894.
But what of Davis’s last architectural hurrah in Montreal?
Less than two months after the opening rounds in Montreal on March 25th, there was a new course: “On the 13th of May, the new ground to the west of Park Avenue was opened by the captain and 20 players” (Montreal Daily Herald, 13 December 1893, p. 5).
And then, less than a week later, there was controversy.
Apparently speaking on behalf of the Park Commission as a whole, one of the Commissioners complained to a reporter about the Club’s high-handedness in appropriating for its own use another section of the Park property:
THE PARK COMMISSIONERS AND THE GOLF CLUB
Somewhat strained relations are said to exist between the Mount Royal Park Commissioners and the Golf Club.
The golfers, when the quarry was opened on Fletcher’s Field, the Commissioners claim, took “French leave” of the Hall property, laying out a new course across it.
In so doing, a plantation of young trees – according to the Commissioners – was cut down and other damage done.
“The Golf Club,” said a Commissioner, “has a lease of its clubhouse at a paltry $120 a year. That doesn’t give it the right to monopolize Fletcher’s Field, and it doesn’t give it the right to go on the Hall property above the field [Fletcher’s Field] at all.
(Daily Witness [Montreal], 20 May 1893, p. 1)
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Since removing trees without permission was an infringement of Park bylaws for which McAnulty had arrested people in the past, it seems unlikely that the club could have removed trees on the old Hall property without McAnulty’s acquiescence in the matter.
With its new 1893 layout officially in play as of mid-May, the Club for the first time in its history did not play across Bleury Street/Park Avenue:
The new course was used for the first time [on 13 May 1893]. So it was only natural that some of the scores made were not up to the average.
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Last year, the course crossed Park Avenue and followed the fence of [to?] the Exhibition Grounds, but this season it has been changed so as to be more up the mountain side.
The nine holes which have been made are named as follows: 1, Lower Orchard; 2, St. Leon; 3 Perry; 4, Mountain; 5, Gibraltar; 6, Cemetery; 7 Hall; 8, Orchard; 9, Home.
In going over the course twice, to make the game, one has to travel three miles and a half.
The new links are a little rough yet but bid fair to excel any former course.
(Montreal Star, 15 May 1893, p. 5)
A number of the holes of this new course were described by an anonymous woman reviewing the course in 1894. She introduces the first two holes as follows:
Fore [caddie] and caddie having been selected, the “Teeing Ground” for the “First Hole” is reached. It [the teeing ground] consists of a level piece of ground marked out, within the limits of which the ball must be teed…. The ball being placed upon [the tee], each player drives as far as possible …. Stroke after stroke is made till the “Putting Green” is reached …. On and on the golfers go from “Teeing Ground” to “Teeing Ground,” each having its respective name characteristic of the surroundings.
[The first hole is not further described and is not named.]
The next we reach is “Elm,” a beautiful sweep of green, and standing majestically in the centre, in solitary grandeur, is the old elm tree which only too often has been struck by the swiftly flying balls.
These two holes are probably the first two holes described by the anonymous 1921 Gazette historian:
Even a younger generation will remember that the first hole was close to the Mountain road near the site of the Cartier Monument [on Park Avenue].
The second tee was in the angle of the roads [where Mountain Road met Park Avenue]…. And the second green [was] near the corner of Mount Royal Avenue [and Park Avenue].
(Gazette [Montreal], 22 October 1921, p. 21)
The second green in question was near Cemetery Road, which is where the person reviewing the course in 1894 locates the third hole, as her hole-by-hole description of the course continues below:
Then the “Cemetery” driver is given a most difficult one [i.e. is given a most difficult drive] as the two roads leading to the cemetery must be crossed….
The next is called the “Mountain” drive, … the ascent being steep and rocky.
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“Gibraltar” teeing ground … comes next…. Having driven from this height, they rapidly descend the steep hill to feel the soft grass of the meadow beneath their feet. To the right, the sumac …; the quarry, a dreaded spot for the golfer, … lies to the left of the Gibraltar rocks …. An easy hole, the fair players need but one hand to count their number of strokes.
[On] “The Meadow,” the teeing ground [is] hidden by the sumacs…. With a few clear strokes, the putting green number six is reached.
[On 7, or “Hall,”] another hill must here be climbed where … the drive is taken through the “Hall” property, now belonging to the park.
Next comes the “Orchard,” … a short and easy hole – the ambition of old and young to accomplish it in three strokes.
Number nine brings them home [the name of the hole was “Home”].
(Montreal Star, 10 November 1894, p. 9)
“Orchard” and “Home” were probably the same holes on the 1892 course and the new 1893 course, for in his mid-October match against Smith in 1892, “Davis, with a fine tee shot, was on the green of the eighth and won the hole” – perhaps suggesting that it was the “short and easy” 8th hole described above, on which “the ambition of old and young [is] to accomplish it in three strokes” (Globe [Toronto], 14 October 1892, p. 6). And we recall that the next hole, “Home,” was a two-shot hole with the orchard along the right side of the fairway.
The ladies’ course that had been planned for the “meadow” and “orchard” behind the Golf House seems never to have entered play. I suspect that the land where it was supposed to be laid out was repurposed by the end of 1892 as the site for new holes for the main course.
When was this new course that was first played on 13 May 1893 laid out?
We can see that there was of course a good deal of overlap between the course that was played on March 25th and the new course inaugurated on May 13th, and there was such confusion between the old holes and the new holes, it seems, that the club’s first competition of the year had to be voided because players became confused and played a mixture of holes:
GOLF
No Match on Saturday
About twenty members of the Royal Montreal Golf Club went over the links on Saturday afternoon [April 29th], under the impression that they were competing for the Sidey Medal, and it was only when they had all finished that they found out their mistake.
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On comparing notes [scorecards?], it was found that there had been a misunderstanding in regard to the course, which had not been properly marked out.
The Committee held a meeting and decided that the score could not be allowed to count and that the match must be played at a future date.
(Montreal Star, 1 May 1893, p. 3)
The future date of this aborted Sidey Medal competition would be May 13th – the day the new course was played for the first time.
Reading between the lines of the newspaper item above, I assume that not everyone played the same holes on April 29th: some people played the new course; some people played the old course; some people played a mix of holes from each.
To certain competitors, it seems, the new holes seemed ready for play on April 29th: indeed, they played them. One suspects that these new holes had had been laid out on the meadow behind the Golf House (originally designated as the site for a ladies’ course) and that they had been built at some point during the 1892 season and so were almost ready for play the next spring. Davis seems to have been active at the Club throughout the winter of 1892-93, for the Executive Committee agreed on 19 December 1892 “to give him a duplicate key of the back door so as to make him independent of [the greenkeeper] Mr. Rogers” (Executive Committee minutes of the meeting on 19 December 1892, courtesy of Royal Montreal Golf Club).
It is quite possible, that is, that the new course that opened with a tournament on 13 May 1893 – 13 days after Davis had commenced employment at the Newport Golf Club – had been laid out by Davis during his last year with the Montreal Golf Club.
As we shall soon see, to help stimulate the development of golf in North America, the Montreal Golf Club had loaned Davis to the Ottawa Golf Club and the Kingston Golf Club in April and May of 1891 so that he could lay out courses for these new clubs, and it had also loaned him for the same purpose in August and September of 1891 to the men and women who were about to found the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. It is inconceivable that Davis’s Montreal employer would not have sought his advice early in 1892 about its planned ladies’ course and then later that year about its decision to use the land designated for the ladies’ course as the site for new holes for the main course.
The new course seems to have been longer than its predecessor.
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In 1890, Henry Stanley Smith recognized that both the Quebec and Montreal layouts were deficient with regard to length: “The weak point of both the Montreal and Quebec links is the short distance between the holes – a good drive and an iron shot will, in most cases, bring you to the putting-green” (H. Stanley Smith in Hutchinson, 191).
Even after more than twenty years of alterations that somewhat lengthened the course, the 14 hole Quebec layout of 1896 had an average length of 260 yards per hole. And the same average hole length prevailed when four holes were played over again to produce a 4,407-yard 18-hole course.
The Montreal course was even shorter.
The 1881-1891 nine-hole layout seems to have amounted to less than 4,000 yards when played twice around as an 18-hole course. In the summer of 1891, when discussing his new 2,559-yard nine-hole layout at Shinnecock Hills with a reporter for the New York Herald, Davis told her that the new Long Island course was much longer than the Montreal course: “Mr. Davis tells me that the Montreal ground is barely one mile [1,760 yards] round” (New York Herald, 30 August 1891). Similarly, London’s Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News reported in September of 1891 that the “best known” of the courses in Canada was the one “at Montreal, where, however, the ground is only a mile around” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News [London, England], 19 September 1891, p. 38). And so, the average length of a hole on the Fletcher’s Field course in 1890-91 was about 200 yards. Obviously, some holes were shorter than 200 yards and some holes were longer than 200 yards.
Since in the late nineteenth century, “a good driving stroke [was] from 170 yards to 200,” the holes on the Fletcher’s Field links that were longer than 200 yards would have been regarded as two-shot holes – the “good drive and … iron shot” described by H. Stanley Smith (Montreal Star, 5 May 1893, p. 1; H. Stanley Smith, Famous Golf Links, p. 191).
In May of 1893, however, it was said that to play the nine-hole course from beginning to end took 1.5 miles of walking – this distance including the combined length of the nine holes as well as the additional distance required to walk from each green to the next tee (Montreal Star, 5 May 1893, p. 1). Still, it seems that the new holes added at the beginning of the 1893 season added several hundred yards to the walk – the extra yards created by some combination of longer holes and longer walks from a putting green to the next tee.
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Henry Stanley Smith recognized that it was not length that challenged the golfer at either Quebec or Montreal, but rather the fairway-wide cross bunkers – a distinctive feature of the distinctive architecture informing these two early inland Canadian layouts: “there are no links in the old country where a topped ball, off either the driver or iron, is more invariably and more unmercifully punished” (H. Stanley Smith in Hutchinson, 191).
If we assume that Davis had something to do with both the 1881 and the 1892-93 redesigns of the Fletcher’s Field courses, we know little of his design philosophy beyond an inference: he seems to have approved of Charles Hunter’s practice of almost always requiring golfers to carry a fairway-wide cross hazard with their drives, as well as Hunter’s practice of often requiring them to carry a fairway-wide cross hazard with their approach shots.
There is no evidence, however, that Davis ever recommended the construction of artificial hazards either on Fletcher’s Field or on the meadow behind the Golf House where new holes were laid out in 1892-93.
Over the years, the fairway-wide cross hazards mentioned in connection with Fletcher’s Field were always natural – such as the quarry on the ostensibly original 1874 hole known as “Pandemonium” or “Pandy.”
And we recall the description of golfers playing approach shots on a two-shot hole on the redesigned 1881 course: the “little red flag” was “on the other side of some rough, uneven ground” they “called bunkers,” and when they had played their shots, they called out to the forecaddies: “Had they got over the bunkers or in?” (Canadian Illustrated News, vol 26 no 20 [12 November 1881], p. 307).
Similarly, in 1890, Henry Stanley Smith pointed to the “high road” and “ditches … on either side” that had to be crossed on the 1st hole; he mentioned the “120 yards” of “all bunker” (with ‘no short cut either to the right or left”) that had to be carried with the drive on the 2nd hole; he noted the “towering elm trees” on another hole requiring a drive “not only … hit hard but well lofted”; and he wrote of the “horrid bunker” to be carried with the drive on the “St. Leon Hole”: “a veritable hay crop … for at least a hundred yards in front of the tee.” Furthermore, all versions of the “Cemetery Hole” seem to have required two roads to be crossed.
If these were holes designed by Davis, we can say that he favoured cross bunkers that had to be carried.
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​Perhaps two styles of hole at Montreal inspired Davis’s designs afterwards: the original “Quarry Hole” and the various “Orchard” holes. Davis used a quarry as a cross hazard at both the Country Club at Brookline and the Newport Golf Club, and at both courses he also used orchards as hazards.
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The Early Penal Designs of Willie Davis
Although neither the Quebec course nor the original Montreal course was laid out in a way that would suggest Dunn’s idea that there should be a cross bunker for every shot on the way to the putting green, fairway-wide cross bunkers were certainly prominent on a number of holes.
We can see by his nine-hole design at Shinnecock Hills in July and August of 1891, that Davis valued fairway-wide cross bunkers so highly that, for the first time, he created artificial cross bunkers where nature had not provided them. See below his diagram of the course.
Figure 89 W.F. Davis, "Map of the Golf Grounds," New York Herald, 30 August 1891. Colours added.
On the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 8th, and 9th holes, Davis was able to use natural hillocks and valleys as the fairway-wide obstacles used in penal design to impede foozled drives and topped fairway shots.
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On the 4th and 5th holes, he used fairway-wide small bushes or hedges as cross bunkers, apparently planted in a row across fairways to impede a topped second shot. The reporter for the New York Herald described them as “furze bushes” (New York Herald, 30 August 1891).
“Furze” is another word for “gorse,” which is not native to North America. One wonders if Davis had told her not that he had used “furze bushes” as obstacles but rather that he had found plants native to Shinnecock Hills that would serve as the architectural equivalent of “furze bushes.” After all, the golf course site was apparently overrun with brambles and bushes:
It is declared that the Shinnecock links are almost perfect as they present nearly every kind of obstacle – sand, hillock, bush, bramble, bunker – that the most exacting and fanatical golfer could desire.
Indeed, there were rather too many of these obstacles in the shape of blackberry and bilberry bushes when the ground was first laid out. Many of these have been removed.
(Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News [London], 19 September 1891, p. 38)
Davis apparently ranged such plants across certain fairways as hedges. Probably with Davis’s use of them at Shinnecock Hills in mind, Willie Park, Jr, implicitly endorsed the use of such an obstacle on American courses when, after his brief visit to the United States in the summer of 1896, he talked to a reporter for the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch on his return to Scotland:
Most [American courses] … were good courses and resembled our inland greens. Few were found near the sea, and of these, the Shinnecock Hills course, Long Island ... was the pick. The green [that is, the “golf course”] was not unlike Luffness ….
[In America] there were hazards similar to those found on Scottish courses. Whins [that is, furze or gorse], however, were quite unknown, though a species of small shrubs and brambles proved quite as troublesome to American golfers as whins do to the Scottish.
(Evening Dispatch [Edinburgh], 22 August 1896, p. 2)
Davis seems to have explained to the reporter that, as golf course architect, it was his first duty to design such obstacles when nature did not provide them:
The first object of the man who has to plan a golfing ground is to enrich it, if it have them not already, with a host of more or less vexatious obstacles.
Over these, the ball must be driven ….
As it is an absolute rule that the said ball must not on any pretence be touched between holes, you can imagine what these obstacles may mean when they happen to be furze bushes or shifting sand heaps …
(New York Herald, 30 August 1891).
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Davis’s term for the construction of artificial hazards on a golf course was “enrichment”! Where had Davis learned this fundamental architectural principle if not at Hoylake? Presumably, the apprentice learned this part of the golf professional’s work from his master, Jack Morris.
Figure 90 Willie Davis is depicted showing a reporter from the New York Herald his Shinnecock Hills layout. New York Herald, 30 August 1891. They stand on the hill marked on the map above as “Proposed Club House Site.”
On the 6th, 7th, and 9th holes, Davis used pre-existing dirt roads as fairway-wide cross bunkers.
Figure 91 W.F. Davis, “The Crack Golf Player," New York Herald, 30 August 1891.
We recall that this penal design strategy was a feature of holes on Fletcher’s Field since the first course was laid out there.
On the 6th hole ay Shinnecock, a road was used as a hazard facing the drive and another road was used as a hazard to be carried on the approach shot.
On the 7th hole, a road faced the drive.
On the 9th hole, a road was to be carried on the approach shot.
On the 3rd and 4th holes, Davis dug three fairway-wide ditches.
Two of the ditches were further “enriched” as obstacles by the raising of sand banks on each side of the ditch. The sand for these banks presumably came from digging the ditches, just as the soil and sod for cop bunkers came from digging the trench in front of them.
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​On his map of the course, Davis called these parts of his hazards “sand ridges.” The reporter for the New York Herald seems to refer to them as “shifting sand heaps” (New York Herald, 30 August 1891).
About ten weeks before his work at Shinnecock Hills, Davis laid out a golf course for the Ottawa Golf Club, and, a few weeks before that, he probably also laid out a nine-hole course for the Kingston Golf Club. I can find no description of the Kingston course laid out in April of 1891, but we know that in Ottawa, Davis widely deployed cross bunkering strategies to punish foozled drives and topped fairway shots. Mind you, there would be no small bushes planted in rows, no artificial ditches, and no artificial sand ridges – in short, no “enrichments” – because in the part of Ottawa known as Sandy Hill where Davis was asked to lay out a course, he was spoiled for choice by hazards ranging from roads and fences to open sand pits and marshy areas.
Of the first potential golf course site he was shown at Shinnecock Hills, Davis had sadly observed to founding member Samuel L. Parrish: “Well, sir, I don’t think you can make golf links out of this sort of thing” (New York Sun, 10 January 1902, p. 4; New York Times, 8 March 1896, p. 25). As Parrish later recalled, he “turned to me and remarked in a somewhat crestfallen manner that he was sorry that we had been put to so much trouble and expense” (Samuel L. Parrish, Some facts, reflections, and personal reminiscences connected with the introduction of the Game of Golf into the United States, more especially as associated with the formation of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club [privately printed by Samuel Parrish, 1923], p. 6). But Davis had no such reaction to the land he was shown in Ottawa, where he set to work on the layout the day he arrived in Ottawa and completed it several days later.
We have a good account of the course as it existed in 1893, when club member E.C. Grant described the layout for Collier’s Once a Week: “The ground is admirably situated for golf, there being plenty of space, and quite enough hazards in the shape of fences, ditches, hills, sand bunkers, etc.” (Collier’s Once a Week, vol 11 no 45 [30 September 1893], p. 5). Also in 1893, the Montreal Star offered a hole-by-hole account of the layout. Together, these descriptions of the course make clear that Davis used the so-called “natural” hazards of the Sandy Hill area to force carries for drives and carries for approach shots.
Figure 92 Collier's Once a Week, vol 11 no 45 (30 September 1893), p. 4. In front of the Ottawa Golf club clubhouse, the drive from the 1st tee. The hole was called "Oshkosh." The shot was played east, toward the Rideau River (coloured blue).
According to the Montreal Star, “For the first [hole, called Oshkosh], one has to tee immediately in front of the club house. A low swampy rocky piece of ground has to be covered, extending about 150 yards, and woe to the luckless wight who gets into it. If this is successfully carried, the player finds himself within about 30 yards of the hole. And with good ground before him” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
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Regarding the 2nd hole, Grant observes the following:
The next hole is over a stretch of rough common of about two hundred and eighty yards covered with long, thick weeds, with the exception of a strip about thirty feet [wide] of cleared space extending from the teeing ground to the hole, and which makes it extremely difficult should the player wander from the direct line.
(Collier’s p. 5).
The 30-foot wide strip that had been cleared of weeds constituted an absurdly narrow fairway. One wonders whether it was instead merely a path to lead golfers through the weeds to the putting green, with these “long, thick weeds” serving the same function as the fairway-wide “small bushes” at Shinnecock Hills: they required the golfer to carry them.
At the 3rd hole, says Grant, “comes another two hundred yards of common, very much similar to the last one, only that it contains two or three mudholes, which are most disastrous to the unfortunate” (Collier’s p. 5). There seems to have been a forced carry for the drive over these mudholes.
And on the next hole, the 4th, there was certainly a forced carry for the drive.
Figure 93 Collier's Once a Week, vol 11 no 45 (30 September 1893, p.4). The ruts of the “rough road” can just be made out in the foreground; the two fences appear in the middle ground; and, of course, the steep hill is prominent in the background.
The Montreal Star observes: “The fourth hole is across rough ground, about 350 yards from the tee. This presents several obstacles, including two fences, a rough road, and a high, steep hill. If the top is not reached, the player finds himself in difficulties, but when the top is attained, he has only about 180 yards to the hole over very easy ground” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
Grant speaks of this hole with wisdom born of experiences good and bad:
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The fourth hole may be either one of the easiest or most difficult of all.
The teeing ground is at the base of a very steep hill, with two fences and a ditch between, and with a successful drive one ought to do the hole in three or four strokes as, once over the hill, it is nice clean common.
But woe betide the one whose ball strikes the fences or goes only half way up the hill, where it is sure to roll down, as it is one continuation of swamp and long weeds and will run one’s average beyond redemption should he not play with the utmost precision and coolness.
(Collier’s p. 5)
According to Grant, even though the hazards on the 4th hole could ruin a score, worse was to come: “This [fourth] hole finished, we cross … into the ‘cuss-word’ country, as the next four holes are a succession of sand bunkers, some of them being eight and ten feet in depth, with steep banks that make the player wish that a lacrosse stick could be included in his outfit” (Collier’s p. 5).
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Natural sand bunkers of this sort obviated the need for the “enrichments” that Davis created less than three months later at Shinnecock Hills: artificial ditches with “sand ridges.”
We can see from the account of the 5th hole in the Montreal Star that a long carry for the drive was necessary:
The fifth hole crosses a heavy sand bunker immediately in front of the hole, which is on a tongue of land surrounded by sand bunkers, which requires straight driving.
A pulled or sliced ball will land the player in the sand and send his score to pieces.
If the bunkers are once carried, it is an easy hole to make.
(Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
And there was no relief on the 6th hole: “The sixth hole is Hades: bunker after bunker for some 300 yards, gullies, long grass, roads, sidewalks, etc., making very careful play necessary” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
In such terrain, a penal golf course designer needed no “enrichments” at all.
Another article in the Montreal Star informs us that “near the finish [of the Ottawa links] is a sand hill that puzzles the most scientific players” (Montreal Star, 7 October 1893, p. 9). This sand hill was an oblong geographical formation that rose several storeys above the surrounding land. On top of it were the 6th green and 7th tee, with the 7th hole paralleling the 6th: “The seventh hole is back over the same ground [as the sixth] for about 360 yards, only there are more bunkers and pitfalls” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
With even “more bunkers and pitfalls” on this hole than on the 6th hole – which was called “Hades” – what name was left for the even more fearsome 7th?
Grant says that because of the hellish bunkering from the 5th to the 8th holes, this part of the course was “‘cuss-word’ country,” a fact which, had it been known to Edinburgh reporters, would have obviated their question to Willie Park, Jr, on his return to Scotland after five months spent in the United States in 1895 – “Do American golfers swear?”:
With the memory of lavish [American] hospitality [still] present with him, the golfer was forced to say, “They do not swear.”
“Not even in in a bunker?” continued the querist.
“Ah, well, they would hardly be human if they did not swear there,” quoth Willie.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2)
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From the 5th to the 8th holes, Davis stimulated cussing by bunkers that were many and deep.
The Collier’s illustration seen below shows in the background the Rideau River (coloured blue) and the distant Protestant General Hospital (coloured brown), in front of which the course concluded, but it shows in the foreground an example the eight- to ten-foot-deep bunkers that Davis used in the “cuss-word” part of the course to require golfers to hit a long drive to reach the fairways.
Figure 94 Collier's Once a Week, vol 11 no 45 (30 September 1893), p. 4. The bunker seems to be filled with footprints. This hazard has the appearance of what one might call a “natural” cop bunker.
Given natural, steep-faced bunkers like the one shown above, which looks as though it constituted a “natural” cop bunker, Davis certainly did not need to dig ditches or build sand ridges in this part of the golf course.
We can see from the Montreal Star’s minimal description of the next hole that it, too, was designed in accord with penal design principles: “The eighth is a short hole, about 175 yards, the only obstacles being a road and a fence” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
Fences were part of the Quebec and Montreal courses, but they did not serve as cross bunkers – a fence between the Martello Tower and the jail marked the boundary of the Cove Fields course, and a wall along the Nun’s property marked the boundary of the Fletcher’s Field course – whereas for his 8th hole at Ottawa, Davis used a fence as a fairway-wide cross bunker.
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The course then seems to have ended with a whimper rather than a bang. The Star says, “The ninth hole is easy at 175 yards” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5). Grant, mind you, adds an important detail: “The ninth course [i.e., hole] is an easy one of one hundred and seventy-five yards, with a steep hill near the hole which warns the too eager player to put restraint upon his motive power” (Montreal Star, 2 May 1893, p. 5).
Davis next laid out a golf course in the spring of 1893 for the Newport Golf Club on rented land he had inspected in November of 1892 on behalf of those intending to form a golf club at Newport. Little is known about the nature of its hazards beyond a statement in the spring of 1893: “the club will make such improvements as are necessary for the game (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 April 1893], p. 5). In the 1890s, the word “improvements” tended to refer to the creation of artificial hazards (on a site lacking natural hazards). At the end of the summer of 1893, the Club would buy its present land on Davis’s recommendation, and Davis would in the spring of 1894 lay out the first nine-hole course on the Club’s present site. These layouts will be discussed in subsequent chapters.
Davis was re-hired at Newport at the end of the 1893 season – as he explained, “To show that my services have been appreciated by the members, they have already engaged me for another year, from March 1st next, with a substantial increase in my salary” – but he was effectively a free agent between November 1893 and March 1894, and as such he designed several golf courses elsewhere (W.F. Davis, “To the editor,” Golf [London], vol 7 no 170 [15 December 1893], p. 218).
In the winter of 1893-94, he laid out a nine-hole course for the Providence Country Club at Choppequonsett, about six miles outside the city: “The whole course is laid on a point which makes into Narragansett Bay, with the Providence River on one side and Muddy Cove on the other…. The links stretch along shore over bluff and ravine and across brook and morass” (The Golfer, vol 2 no 4 [February 1896], p. 106). It seems that there will have been many forced carries on holes “over” and “across” such bluffs, ravines, brooks, and morasses.
Davis also laid out a course at Staatsburg, New York, around this time – by at least October of 1893, it seems, for the following report was published that month: “Golf, a game which is very popular in Scotland, and which was one of the leading athletic sports at Newport the past season [1893], is being played here [Staatsburg] by some of our aristocratic neighbours” (Poughkeepsie Journal, 22 October 1893, p. 3).
Figure 95 W.B. Dinsmore III (1870-1929).
This course was on the grounds of William Brown Dinsmore, II, and it was later reported that “The course was laid out by Mr. W.B. Dinsmore [III], with the assistance of Willie Davis” (Poughkeepsie Eagle-New [New York], 15 May 1896, p. 5).
Dinsmore III would have “laid out” the course only in the sense that he was the head of the Green Committee that commissioned Davis, whose “assistance” will have consisted of designing the course (which is shown below in a stylized bird’s-eye-view painting).
Figure 96 An undated painting by Lew Stoneman of the Staatsburg Golf Club at Staatsburg, New York.
The hilly nature of the property is belied by the flattened and compressed image above. Thomas Buggy observes that “the original course had some dramatic cross-valley holes, notably 2, 3, and 4. Hole #3 [was] especially dramatic – a ‘peak to peak’ 192-yard Par 3 to a very small green with severe fall-offs on all sides” (https://staatsburghstatehistoricsite.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-history-of-dinsmore-golf-course.html).
Figure 97 A superimposition of the Davis layout at Staatsburg on a topographic depiction of the South Nine of today's Dinsmore Golf Course. Contour lines show how hilly the course site is.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in the summer of 1894: “The Staatsburg Golf Club boasts of ten [sic] links, the distance around being two and a quarter miles” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 August 1894, p. 3). Everywhere else, the course was said to have comprised nine holes. The reported distance of “two and a quarter miles” included the distance from walking from a green to the next tee; the total distance of the individual holes was 2,591 yards, quite a respectable length for a layout in the mid-1890s – a layout was much admired: the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News says in one paragraph that it is “one of the best golf courses in the country” and observes in the next paragraph that “the grounds are pronounced by expert golf players as the ideal course of the world” (Poughkeepsie Eagle-News [New York], 15 May 1896, p. 5).
The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News observes: “Nature has beautifully supplied the hazards. There are eight water hazards to be cleared, which is unusual” (Poughkeepsie Eagle-News [New York], 15 May 1896, p. 5). The “eight water hazards to be cleared” comprised creeks that crossed the property. In every case, creeks on the course were crossed by bridges (coloured light brown), as on the 362-yard 1st hole shown above (left).
Figure 98 362-yd 1st hole. Figure 99 252-yd 2nd hole.
As shown above, most putting greens are depicted as light green squares with a hole marker in the centre of each, the hole number being indicated on this marker. Each teeing ground is depicted as a light green rectangle with a black post on the right side. At the base of the post is a small rectangular black shape – probably the box containing sand and water for composing the conical mound of sand on which the golf ball was teed for the drive.
Coloured bluish-purple in the painting, low stone walls (“about two feet high” and “earth covered”), with a sand-filled trench in front of each, were used as hazards on many holes (https://staatsburghstatehistoricsite.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-history-of-dinsmore-golf-course.html). And shallow sand pits (coloured beige) were also used as hazards.
Figure 100 192-yd 3rd hole.
The green of the 192-yard 3rd hole depicted above was the only round green on the golf course.
Figure 101 360-yd 4th.
The 360-yard 4th hole was the only one on which Davis placed a stone wall bunker directly in front of the green. He thereby prevented approaching the green by a run-up shot and insisted, instead, that a pitch shot be lofted over the cross bunker.
Figure 102 419-yd 5th hole. Figure 103 252-yd 6th hole.
On the 419-yard 5th hole (the longest) was well guarded by cross bunkers: a creek captured foozled drives and another creek disallowed a run-up shot, forcing a pitch shot to be played onto the green. But the 252-yard 6th hole had the most fearsome array of cross bunkers: two creeks and a series of three cop bunkers guarding the green, forcing a lofted approach (with grass bottoms now, these three bunkers remain on the 15th hole of today’s golf course).
Davis’s layout for the Staatsburg Golf Club concluded with three holes well-defended – primarily by natural cross hazards.
Figure 104 163-yd 7th hole. Figure 105 285-yd 8th hole. Figure 106 306-yd 9th hole.
On the one-shot 163-yard 7th hole (the shortest on the course), Davis required a shot to be lofted over a creek and a pair of trees. On the 306-yard 9th hole, the approach shot had to be played over or around a tree, with a sand bunker short right of the green to frustrate any attempt to run the ball onto the green. The 285-yard 8th hole had an extraordinary array of cross bunkers: stone wall fences and ditches, a dirt road, a creek crossing the line of play and a creek paralleling the line of play.
The popular Staatsburg Golf Club hosted the best amateur golfers of the day at a number of mid-1890s tournaments, a particularly notable one serving as a warm-up for many of the contestants entered in the first USGA Amateur Championship at Newport in September of 1895. As Buggy notes, the course was quite challenging: “scores from an 1896 tournament ranged from 48 to 60 for nine holes” (https://staatsburghstatehistoricsite.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-history-of-dinsmore-golf-course.html).
The difficulty of the Staatsburg course can probably be explained by the fact that it was designed like all of Davis’s early 1890s layouts: the goal was to challenge tee shots and approach shots by means of stout fairway-wide cross bunkers.
The 1893 Newport Course
It is difficult to determine the nature of the first two golf courses that Davis laid out for the Newport Golf Club – the first, in 1893, the second, in 1894. Yet it is just as difficult to imagine that they departed from the penal design strategies displayed on every other course that he had previously laid out or was designing contemporaneously with his work at Newport.
Davis explained how he was called to Newport from Montreal in November of 1892 to select a site for a golf course:
In the fall of 1892, I received a letter from Rev. Dr. Rainsford asking if I would go to Newport and start them with a club, and, after some correspondence with Mr. Lorillard Spencer, I arranged to meet some gentlemen in Newport on the 10th of November.
On that date, I met Mr. Spencer and Mr. H.M. Brooks and talked the matter over. It was decided to meet the following morning and look for suitable ground for the links….
Figure 107 The Bateman Hotel, also known as Bateman's Inn of Bateman House, Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1895.
After some looking around, I found the land on the western part of the island near Brenton’s Point to be best adapted.
A strip of this land belonging to Mrs. Gammell of Providence was rented and a lot belonging to Mrs. French was selected for a clubhouse site.
But the governors of the club decided not to build [a clubhouse] the first year until they saw how the game would take, so [they] leased the Bateman House for the season.
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(William F. Davis, autobiographical statement, courtesy of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club)
When the Newport Golf Club was officially formed in January of 1893, it was reported that “The club has leased a large tract of land from the King and Gammel estates on Ocean Avenue” (Boston Evening Transcript, 28 January 1893, p. 5).
But leases were still being negotiated in the spring. In April, The Providence News reported: “Official announcement had been made to the effect that the golf club … had rented the Bateman farm of thirty acres on Ocean Avenue, opposite Bateman’s Point [sic; presumably Brenton’s Point], for the game next season” (Providence News [Rhode Island], 21 April 1893, p. 2). Referring to this arrangement, the New York Sun reported: “The club will make such improvements as are necessary for the game” (Sun [New York], 21 April 1893, p. 4). And in May, the local newspaper reported that the Club had just rented the Gammell land:
Whipple & Derby have rented for Mrs. William Gammell her property on Ocean and Brenton avenues, containing about forty acres, to the Newport Golf Club.
This property, together with the Bateman farm and other property under negotiation, will give a very fine site for the links of the Club, which are now being laid out under the direction of Professor Davis, the superintendent.
(Newport Mercury [Rhode Island], 13 May 1893, p. 5)
According to The Providence News, the Club had leased just 35 acres prior to this: “The Newport Golf Club has leased forty acres of land on Ocean Avenue belonging to Mrs. Gammell. This makes seventy-five acres of land the club has leased for five years” (Providence News [Rhode Island], 13 May 1893, p. 2). The 75 acres in question seem to have comprised the 30 acres of the Bateman farm leased in April and the approximately 44 acres of the Gammell land rented in May.
Figure 108 Annotated aerial photograph of the Bateman Hotel, circa early 1930s.
The Gammell property was kitty corner to the Bateman Hotel where Brenton and Winans Avenues crossed, and it was on the west side of Harrison Avenue opposite to the property where the present clubhouse and 10 holes of the present golf course are located.
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Abandoned at the end of the 1893 season, this property was later purchased by the Club and became the site of holes 2 to 8 of the A.W. Tillinghast expansion of the course in 1923.
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Davis had spoken to local Newport newspapers about the possibility of laying out the course as early as March:
“Mr. W.F. Davis, who has been engaged to lay out the grounds on Ocean Avenue for the recently organized Golf Club, has been in town this week and as soon as the conditions become anywise favorable, he will begin his work” (Newport Mercury [Rhode Island], 11 March 1893, p. 1).
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But he probably was not able to start work in earnest until April, when it was reported, as noted above, that “The Newport Golf Club has taken a year’s lease of the Bateman farm on Brenton’s point …. [and] will make at once such slight improvements as are necessary for the game” (New York Tribune, 21 April 1893, p.7).
At the beginning of June, it was reported that play was imminent: “The Club’s grounds, now nearly in readiness, are extensive, and, it is said, well adapted to the game” (Newport Mercury [Rhode Island], 3 June 1893, p. 1).
Curious residents of Newport had visited the construction site throughout the spring to inspect the layout as work on it progressed. Bounded by roads, the property was visible from several vantage points:
Already the Golf Club grounds are attracting attention, and frequent excursions to them are made by the wealthy ones who are interested in the progress of the preparations.
Several four-in-hands have been driven down this week.
Some members of the Myopia Club of Boston will play golf here this season.
(Boston Evening Transcript, 16 June 1893, p. 4)
Finally, play began in the middle of June: “The grounds of the new golf club at Bateman’s point have been in use this week and have proved quite an attraction. Many cottagers drove there and seemed thoroughly to enjoy the game” (Boston Globe, 25 June 1893, p. 23).
On this new course, Davis played against Willie Dunn in the first professional match ever arranged in North America, and, as had been the case for generations in challenge matches played in Scotland and England, there was a good deal of money wagered on the outcome – despite the fact that few people watching the game understood how it was played, let alone what the rules might be:
7). At the beginning of June, it was reported that play was imminent: “The Club’s grounds, now nearly in readiness, are extensive, and, it is said, well adapted to the game” (Newport Mercury [Rhode Island], 3 June 1893, p. 1). Curious residents of Newport had visited the construction site throughout the spring to inspect the layout as work on it progressed. Bounded by roads, the property was visible from several vantage points: Already the Golf Club grounds are attracting attention, and frequent excursions to them are made by the wealthy ones who are interested in the progress of the preparations. Several four-in-hands have been driven down this week. Some members of the Myopia Club of Boston will play golf here this season. (Boston Evening Transcript, 16 June 1893, p. 4) Finally, play began in the middle of June: “The grounds of the new golf club at Bateman’s point have been in use this week and have proved quite an attraction. Many cottagers drove there and seemed thoroughly to enjoy the game” (Boston Globe, 25 June 1893, p. 23). On this new course, Davis played against Willie Dunn in the first professional match ever arranged in North America, and, as had been the case for generations in challenge matches played in Scotland and England, there was a good deal of money wagered on the outcome – despite the fact that few people watching the game understood how it was played, let alone what the rules might be:
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Newport Society Men Lose Heavily on a Golf Match
Newport, July 26 – The professional golf match between William Dunn of the Shinnecock Club of Southampton and Davis, the Newport professional, formerly of Canada, was played today in a rainstorm.
It was won by Dunn by one stroke.
Newport society men lost heavily.
(Sun [New York], 27 July 1893, p. 4)
The report that Dunn won the match by one stroke was an error caused by widespread ignorance of golf, especially regarding how scoring occurred in match play.
Davis provided an accurate account of the scoring in his description of the contest for A.J. Robertson, the editor of Golf (London), in a letter dated 26 November 1893:
The first heard of W. Dunn in Newport was a letter received by a member asking if they wanted a man to lay out links and supply clubs and balls.
Dunn was then engaged by the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
The letter was handed to me, and I wrote to him for his prices, offering to give him what trade I could.
He came on a visit to Newport July 26th and the Club subscribed a purse of $80, to be divided [between us], to play an exhibition game.
Dunn declined to play the first day, which was [a] fine [day]; the second day was a rough, stormy day, and Dunn found that he must go home that night, so we played the game, with four gentlemen and one lady for spectators.
Dunn won the first three holes and held them to the end of the first round and finally won by 5 and 3 to play.
We then ran home out of the rain. The caddies refused to go more than one round, and two of the members kindly carried our clubs for the remainder of the match.
Scores:
Dunn – Out, 5 4 4 5 8 5 4 4 6 = 45; In, 6 4 4 5 7 4 = 30; total 75.
Davis – Out, 6 5 5 3 5 5 5 6 6 = 46; In, 7 5 6 4 5 6 = 33; total 79.
I may mention that Dunn is the first professional I have seen for over twelve years and that my time is so much taken up in workshop and giving lessons that I have no time to practise the game.
(Golf [London], vol 7 no 170 [15 December 1893], p. 218)
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As Davis mentions, in addition to laying out the golf course and making and repairing clubs and balls, his main role at Newport was to instruct people new to the game – and most of the people in Newport were indeed new to the game.
A newspaper reporter was amused by how Newport’s society people accepted instructions from the man with the unusual profession, unique vocabulary, and exotic accent: “The Newport Golf Club … lacks neither capital nor enterprise. It has imported men [sic] who drawl out the most astonishing words. Just as if they were used to it, the players do as they are told” (Brooklyn Citizen [New York], 8 September 1893, p. 3).
Another reporter was more direct in his mockery of the reliance of Newport’s society people on Davis’s instruction:
They ha’ gotten golf at Newport.
The English got it from the Scotch, and the “leisure class” at Newport got it from the English.
It suits the leisure class because it is so leisurely….
[And] it requires no mental exertion, as played in Newport, for the Golf Club has imported British golf tutors [sic] who do all the brain work for the members and tell them just what to do ….
(Times Union [New York], 9 September 1893, p. 2)
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By August, the Newport Golf Club was confident that the game was indeed going to “take,” but further development of the 1893 golf course probably slowed at this time – and may have stopped altogether – for by mid-August, the Club’s attempt to buy the Bateman Hotel and related property was abandoned and it was decided instead to buy land on the other side of Harrison Avenue as a site for a new golf course and a proper clubhouse.
No full description of the 1893 golf course has been found. But a few things are clear.
We can tell from the scores made by Davis and Dunn (the only hole-by-hole scores ever recorded for play on the course) that the 5th hole was the most difficult. Played twice by each of them, it produced an average score of 6.3 (average scores for the 1st and 9th were 6). The easiest hole was the 4th, producing an average score of 4.3 (average scores for the 2nd and 7th were 4.5). Holes 3, 6, and 8 produced average scores of 4.8, 5, and 5, respectively.
The photograph below probably shows the putting green of the 3rd hole of the 1893 layout.
Figure 109 Willie Davis (extreme right), three caddies (extreme left), and four Havemeyers and a friend, left to right: Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1876-1965); Henry Rogers Winthrop (1876-1958); Theodore Augustus Havemeyer, Jr (1870-1936); Theodore Augustus Havemeyer, Sr (1837-1897); Frederick Christian Havemeyer (1879-1948). The Illustrated American, 25 August 1894, p. 22.
The photograph above appeared in The Illustrated American on 25 August 1894, but there is reason to believe that the photograph was taken the previous year and shows the golfers on the 1893 course.
Figure 110 Henry R. Winthrop (left) and Henry O. Havemeyer, Newport Golf Club, 1893.
In a photograph dated 1893 (seen to the left), Henry Winthrop and Henry Havemeyer stand on the same green with the same hill in the background. They wear the same clothes worn in the photograph above, and Henry is holding the same putter. The photograph to the left was apparently taken at the same time as the one above.
Furthermore, the USGA Journal published the above image of Winthrop and the Havemeyers in 1950 and indicated that it was taken in August of 1893 (USGA Journal, June 1950, p. 13).
The Gammell property probably had stone fences like those on the other farmland in the area (and throughout Rhode Island generally).
For instance, the property across the street on the east side of Harrison Avenue, which the club would acquire late in the summer of 1893, had numerous stone fences, several of which Davis would incorporate as hazards into his various layouts there.
Figure 111 Enlarged detail from the photograph above.
Davis had presumably used similar stone fences on the Gammell property as hazards on his 1893 layout – just as he would make stone fences the main hazards on his Staatsburg layout later in 1893.
Indeed, seen to the left is a greatly enlarged detail from the photograph above that seems to show a stone fence running diagonally through this image at the level of Davis’s back and chest. This fence may have been crossed on the way to the 3rd green on which they stand.
When Davis and Dunn played their match, they played this hole twice: Dunn made a 4 each time; Davis first scored 5, then 6.
The 1894 Newport Course
Figure 112 Bateman Hotel. Newport Historical Society P 1224. Undated.
With negotiations to purchase the Bateman Hotel (and its related farm property) abandoned by the end of August 1893, Davis was asked to inspect the 140 acres of land next to the Gammell property and determine whether it was suitable for development as a golf course. As he explained: “The club was such a success from the outset that the governors soon decided to buy land and build. I was requested to look over the King property and to report on its adaptability for the game. I reported favourably, and it was bought” (William F. Davis, autobiographical document, courtesy of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club).
A New York Herald reporter celebrated the new Davis layout in the summer of 1894:
The grounds are favorably situated on the Ocean Drive, about two and a half miles from Newport.
No more beautiful or more suitable site for this engrossing sport could have been chosen, and from the varied and undulating character of the links …, as well as from its superb views, both seaward and inland, the Newport club bids fair to become one of the most popular golf links in the world.
There are plenty of hazards in the way of soft places [i.e., marshy areas], fences, roughness, etc., and there is no reason why the players overcoming these should not, with the increase of skill that comes from greater practice, soon be able to compete successfully with their longer-experienced Scotch, English, and Canadian rivals.
(Herald [New York], reprinted St. Paul Daily Globe [Minnesota], 26 August 1894, p. 11)
A map of the new property was drawn up by the Newport Street Commissioner, civil engineer Captain J.P. Cotton, on 24 March 1894, several weeks before Davis began to lay out his first golf course on this site. The purpose of this map was to indicate how the land designated for the polo f ield would be drained. Cotton would supervise work on the polo field during 1894.
In December of 1894, it seems that William H. Lawton, Jr, who would in 1895 draw up a topographical map of the property with the completed golf course shown on it, added lines to Cotton’s map showing ditches completed by the end of the year and he also added images of the clubhouse and driveway then under construction.
Also marked on the map are two old stone walls running across the property (obstructions that Davis would use as hazards on a number of holes) and a “line of dry ground” indicating the point beyond which the eastern portion of the property was wet.
The only sign of the golf course to come is the word “GOLF” printed on the section of the map showing the southern third of the dry western part of the property.
Figure 113 Newport Historical Society. The clubhouse is coloured purple. Various words are highlighted: the word “GOLF” in yellow; the word “line of dry ground in light green; the word “barn” in light blue; the word “POLO” in red; the words “stone wall” in purple; the words “Harrison Avenue” and Castle Hill” Avenue in orange.
Davis was well at work on the course by the middle of April:
The Golf Club Grounds
The extensive improvements to the Golf Club property which were expected to be begun the first of the present month are still untouched ….
Street Commissioner Cotton has made plans for a thorough system of drainage of the entire property and the layout of a polo lot, and Messrs Peabody & Sterns have prepared plans and specifications for a handsome clubhouse, but as yet the only work being done is that of putting the golf grounds proper in condition for the season’s use.
This latter work is in charge of superintendent Davis and it includes a change of location of several of the “putting greens” from leased land onto the club’s own property to the northward.
(Newport Mercury and Weekly News, 21 April 1894, p. 1)
Talk of moving abandoning the golf course on the Gammell property and laying out a new one on the King property as “a change of location of several of the ‘putting greens’” is a reminder of how little people at the Newport Mercury and Weekly News knew about golf.
Davis’s 1894 layout was understood from the beginning to be but the first step on the way to the championship layout that the Club planned to develop in 1895. As the New York Times observed in August of 1894:
The grounds now contain nine holes, and the course is a little less than two miles, but by next year this will be considerably enlarged and the links greatly improved in every way.
William J. [sic] Davis is in charge of the grounds….
His efficient work at the Golf Club has contributed in no small degree to its present success.
(New York Times, 12 August 1894, p. 7)
The claim that the course was “a little less than two miles” is misleading. The total length of the holes on the 1894 course certainly did not add up to anything close to the 3,520 yards that make up two miles. After all, the “lengthened” 1895 course added up to just 2,755 yards.
Note that as Davis enlarged the 1894 course in the early spring of 1895, he was said to have added a quarter of a mile to it, which would mean that the 1894 course was about 2,300 yards in length (Sun [New York], 11 May 1895, p. 5).
The “two mile” walk mentioned by the New York Times included the distance between each putting green and the next tee, and it may also have included the walk from the Club’s 1894 clubhouse to the course: “The Golf Club …, pending the erection of the new clubhouse …, leased for this season the Pond cottage, which admirably answers the purpose of the golf members” (New York Times, 12 August 1894, p. 7). The “small cottage [was] owned by Anson Phelps Pond, of New York,” a playwright. The cottage was at the junction of Ridge Road and Harrison Avenue – ¼ of a mile from the site of the new clubhouse.
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The Pond cottage stables appear in the photograph below: Davis’s 1894 caddies pose in front of this building, which served as the caddie shack (Davis’s five- or six-year-old son John was one of the caddies shown here).
Figure 114 Illustrated American, vol 16 no 227 (24 August 1894), p. 226. One of the caddies is Davis’s five- or six-year-old son John. In 1951, John P. Watterson, one of the caddies seen above, identified the others: “Besides Watterson, other boys are his brother David; his cousin William Donovan …; Tim Harrington …; Alfred O’Connor; a Murphy boy …; a … lad named Clark; John J. Keenan; … Patrick Furey; … Philip Clark; Michael ‘Mickey’ Reagan; Jack O’Connell; Jack Sullivan …; a Morrisey boy …; a little British boy, son [John] of the 1895 club pro [Willie Davis] and Danny Shea” (Newport Daily News, 11 August 1951, p. 3.
Recalling the amateur championship contested on the 1894 Davis course, Hugh Fitzpatrick described the layout as “a short but well-planned course” (Josiah Newman, Official Golf Guide of 1899 [New York: privately printed, 1899], p. 51). Davis duly enlarged this 1894 layout – a mid summer 1895 newspaper item comparing his new layout to the previous one: “The golf grounds have been greatly enlarged since last season, new bunkers are being constructed, and the addition to the grass section will afford opportunity for a large number of players to chase the ball about” (Inter Ocean, 28 July 1895, p. 13). The grass section in question may have been on southern part of the low, eastern section of the new property. A polo field had been under construction on the northern section of the eastern part of the club’s property for the entire 1894 season, and this work had entailed running ditches and drains across the southern section of the eastern property, too: Outside Contractor Maccolini has a large gang of men working on the polo field and contractor James Corrigan another gang on the surrounding territory …. The grounds on the low land south of the polo field have been cleared of the underbrush, which from time immemorial has marked the place, leveled and sown with grass. When the seed comes up, the club will have a material increase in its supply of meadow land for lawn or golf links. (undated early 1895 newspaper item, Waterman, Fred Waterman, The History of the Newport Country Club [Newport Rhode Island: Newport Country Club Preservation Foundation, 2013], p. 110) When this property was purchased in September of 1893, it was recognized that in addition to 60 acres that were high and dry (land on which the clubhouse would be built), there were also 80 acres that were “low and comparatively level” – but wet: “the low land, after being provided with a thorough system of drainage, will be laid out for the sports” (Boston Globe, 17 September 1893, p. 9). The 1894 course was presumably laid out entirely above the “line of dry ground.” Davis designed this course with the expectation that certain holes would be lengthened in the spring of 1895 and he might even have planned that some would be replaced when swampy areas to the east – both south of the polo field and north of it – were drained and the attendant areas of underbrush on the southern portion were cleared, leveled, and sown. Davis knew he would have available to him “a material increase in … meadow land for lawn or golf links.” Note that “Meadow” became the name of the 1895 8th hole, which was the hole located closest to the polo field at the north end of the Club’s property. The two main stone walls that crossed the dry part of the property on a north-south line must have featured as cross bunkers on a number of Davis’s 1894 holes. And there were other fences too, although they were not marked on the 1894 Cotton-Lawton map shown above. For instance, there was a stone wall running on an east-west line along the northern side of what became the 1895 9th green. See below the undated photograph in Fred Waterman’s History of the Newport Country Club that shows a stone wall running alongside an unidentified putting green upon which play occurs in front of about 30 spectators. The photograph probably dates from the mid-1890s, but it is not clear which of the nine-hole Davis layouts at Newport is shown here: the 1893 layout; the 1894 layout; the 1895 layout.
Figure 115 Undated photograph in Fred Waterman, The History of the Newport Country Club (Newport Rhode Island: Newport Country Club Preservation Foundation, 2013), pp. 130-31.
The fact the match shown above was watched by a large crowd of spectators suggests that a significant contest was underway. The only significant match reported on the 1893 course was the contest between Willie Davis and Willie Dunn, and it had only a few spectators because of the bad weather. So the photograph probably shows play on the 1894 or 1895 course.
It is possible that the “action shot” above shows William G. Laurence on 11 September 1894 putting on the 9th green to defeat Charles Blair Macdonald in the Newport Golf Club’s attempt to conduct the first United States Amateur Championship:
Both men were on the last green with Lawrence a stroke up.
McDonald putted beautifully, and the score was very nearly closing a tie, but Lawrence putted his ball in the hole with a remarkably accurate shot of some 3 ½ yards.
Had he failed, the Chicago man would have tied the score.
(Sun [New York], 12 September 1894, p. 5)
The crowd of spectators visible in the wide-angle photograph (about 30 people are shown) corresponds closely with the number mentioned in a newspaper’s account of the match:
The Golf Club had the greatest day in its history on Tuesday [11 September 1894].
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It seemed as if all society was there lunching at the clubhouse and then following Charles McDonald of Chicago and Mr. Lawrence over the course, watching eagerly their fine play.
In the throng of followers were Dr. James Dwight, Herbert C. Leeds, Mr. Curtis of Boston, Count Castellane, Baron Fallon, H.M. Brooks, Mr. and Mrs. Louis M. Rutherford, Mr. and Mrs. William R. Travers, Lawrence McCreery, Mrs. Whitney Warren, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock, Jr., Duke D’Alboa, Count Hadik, William Tiffany, Richard Peters, P.H. Duryea, Miss McCallister, C.N. Fay, O.H.P. Belmont, Winthrop Rutherford, Count and Countess Sierstorpff, Miss Anna Sands, Baron Le Ghait (the German minister), Miss Daisy Peirson, Hon. Lispinard Stewart, Mr. and Mrs. George Barclay, and T.A. Havemeyer, Jr.
(Boston Evening Transcript, 15 September 1894, p. 4)
Macdonald’s score in the 1894 tournament at Newport was compromised by to his inability to cope with stone walls: “In playing for the third hole, MacDonald topped the ball and drove it into a wall. A second attempt to drive it over failed” (Boston Globe, 12 September 1894, p. 5).
Furthermore, “In the second round, Macdonald again got into the wall, where he had lost on the f irst round, and lost a stroke by taking the ball out” (Boston Globe, 12 September 1894, p. 5).
In retrospect, H.L. Fitzpatrick, of the New York Sun, attributed MacDonald’s loss of the championship to his problems with the stone wall on the 3rd hole: in the first round, “McDonald [sic] was unfortunate, if not careless, and he drove his ball into a wall twice in succession”; in the second round, his chances further decreased “by … getting into the wall again” (Sun [New York], 12 September 1894, p. 5).
According to Fitzpatrick, “Lawrence’s play was without any of these incidents, as every stroke was carefully planned and executed” (Sun [New York], 12 September 1894, p. 5).
Apart from the 3rd hole and its fearsome stone wall, the only other 1894 hole about which there is any information is the 6th.
Fitzpatrick notes that “McDonald [sic] drove with great force, but he was less careful than Lawrence,” not just driving “his ball into a wall twice in succession,” for “later he drove it into a road, which lost him a stroke, according to the ground rules” (New York Sun, 12 September 1894, p. 5). The golf writer for the Boston Globe made a similar observation: “MacDonald drove a ball into the road and took the shot over, losing a stroke, and afterward got into high grass” (Boston Globe, 12 September 1894, p. 5). Fitzpatrick reveals that it was on “6 [that] McDonald lost his ball” (New York Sun, 12 September 1894, p. 5).
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One infers that the 1894 6th hole was laid out in proximity to one of the roads bounding the club’s property, that playing the ball “into the road” was a frequent occurrence, and that the Club’s rule was that a ball played into the road was out of bounds, which required that the shot be replayed (at the cost of stroke and distance). Since the 1895 6th fairway ran along Harrison Avenue for the entire length of the hole, it seems likely that the 1894 6th hole did, too.
At 485 yards, the 1895 6th hole was by far the longest on the course, and we know that the 1894 6th hole was also a long hole, for when a professional match was conducted on the 19th and 20th of September 1894 involving Willie Campbell, Willie Dunn, and host Willie Davis, an otherwise out-of-form Davis amazed fellow competitors and spectators alike with a score of 3 on this hole: “Davis made the … six hole in three strokes, a remarkable feat” (Buffalo News [New York], 22 September 1894, p. 1).
The American correspondent for London’s Golf magazine made a similar observation: “Davis did only one good thing throughout the match, taking what is looked upon as a very difficult hole, No. 6, in 3” (Golf, 12 October 1894, p. 75).
Willie Campbell established the 18-hole scoring record for the 1894 course: 82. Willie Campbell and Willie Dunn shared the 9-hole record: 41. Charles Blair MacDonald’s 43 was “the best amateur record,” and his 89 seems to have been the lowest 18-hole score ever recorded on it by an amateur (Sun [New York], 12 September 1894, p. 5).
Indeed, just two amateur players broke 100 during the 1894 Amateur Championship: MacDonald with 89, and eventual winner William G. Laurence with 93. As the golf writer for Harper’s Weekly Magazine observed, “The links was in excellent condition, though evidently much harder than that to which some of the players had been accustomed” (Harper’s Weekly Magazine [New York], vol 38 no 1971 [29 September 1894], p. 934
A Big Question
How is it that between 1891 and 1894, Willie Davis was laying out inland golf courses in Canada and the United States almost exactly in the way Tom Dunn was laying them out contemporaneously in Europe – with the latter doing so in a way that struck golfers as unique and revolutionary?
After all, Davis left England in April of 1881 and did not to return until January of 1895.
Furthermore, between his departure from Hoylake in March of 1881 and 26 July 1893, Davis met no golf professional who might have informed him of British developments in golf course architecture while he was away in North America: “I may mention that [Willie] Dunn is the first professional I have seen for over twelve years” (Golf [London], vol 7 no 170 [15 December 1893], p. 218).
And just as importantly, before Willie Dunn began to lay out golf courses in the United States in the summer of 1893, of course there were no Dunn family designs in North America from which Davis might have learned the tenets of Tom Dunn’s penal design theory.
Before returning to Biarritz, France, for the winter of 1893-94, Dunn laid out perhaps half a dozen nine-hole courses in the United States between the late spring and early fall, and he also added cop bunkers to the 12-hole Shinnecock Hills course – including a distinctive cop bunker for Davis’s 1891 2nd hole (which had become the 5th hole on John Cuthbert’s 12-hole redesign). One of Dunn’s friends and supporters wrote to the editor of Golf (London) in November of 1893 to list courses Dunn had laid out during his first season in America:
Dunn has laid out courses for Bayard Cutting at Oakdale, Long Island, for Mr. W.K. Vanderbilt at Newport, for Mr. F. Gephardt at Tuxedo [New York], for Mr. Sidney Dillon Ripley and the Meadow Brook Club at Hempstead, Long Island, for Mr. W. Mc K. Twombley at New Jersey, and at several other places.
(R.E. Cherrill, Letter to the editor, Golf [London], 10 November 1893], p. 134)
Apparently, the list is not comprehensive, and it is completely inaccurate in suggesting that Dunn had anything to do with the course at Newport. There may be other inaccuracies.
As we know, Davis wrote his own letter to the editor of Golf (London) to set the record straight regarding Newport – a letter that implies that he and Dunn did not hit it off. Davis probably saw Dunn’s letter to the Newport Golf Club offering “to lay out links and supply clubs and balls” as discourteous to a fellow golf professional, for he no doubt assumed that Dunn had been told at Shinnecock Hills that Davis was at Newport. The Newport Golf Club may also have regarded Dunn’s letter as a breach of protocol, for it decided not to reply to Dunn, as Davis explains: “The letter was handed to me, and I wrote to him for his prices, offering to give him what trade I could.” I doubt that Davis gave much trade to Dunn, and I doubt that they sat down hip to haunch in July of 1893 and discussed architectural theory.
Before the 1894 golf season, Davis is not known to have visited any of the courses that Dunn laid out in 1893. Furthermore, he does not seem to have seen Dunn’s work at Shinnecock Hills until November of 1894. And so, I take Davis’s architectural work until at least mid-season 1894 to be free of Dunn-family influence.
Figure 116 Willie Campbell and his daughter Mary at Franklin Park, Boston, circa 1896.
The next golf professional that Davis met after meeting Dunn in July of 1893 was Willie Campbell, who arrived in Boston in April of 1894. These two men played two rounds of golf together in May of 1894 at the Country Club at Brookline, where Campbell was in the process of lengthening a nine-hole course probably designed in part by Davis during the previous winter (see my essay, “Willie Davis and The Country Club at Brookline” at donaldjchilds.ca.). Since Campbell had laid out courses in Scotland but had no experience of designing courses in North America but was expected to lay out new holes at Brookline and Essex, he may well have discussed with Davis the challenges of laying out and maintaining inland courses in the American Northeast.
​Could Davis have learned of Tom Dunn’s penal design practices from Golf (London), a weekly golf newspaper that was launched in September of 1890?
Golf was well known at Davis’s club in Montreal by the beginning of 1891, with secretary J. Hutton Balfour regularly informing the editor of events in Montreal. And we know that Davis personally subscribed to Golf by at least 1893.
In items that would have caught Davis’s attention, Golf occasionally mentioned changes at Hoylake, such as the observation in March of 1891 that “in front of the 18th tee, a bunker and cop have now been erected” (Golf [London], 6 March 1891, p. 393). This observation was made by a member of Royal Liverpool who complained that the course was inadequate as a test of championship golf because too many holes lacked just such a cross bunker for capturing the misplayed drive:
At Hoylake, you can top your tee shots at the 1st and 2nd holes, scuffle it very often with perfect impunity at the 4th, top as much as you like at the 5th, and at the 6th when the tee is to the right of the black hut but not when it is to the left.
You are not much punished at the 7th; at the 8th, there are two little bunkers but I have seen topped balls run clean through them and very rarely seen one caught.
The 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th shots must be clean ones.
At the 13th, a scuffled ball may be punished or may not, the 14th is an iron shot and must be lofted, but the 15th may be scuffled and so may the 16th, and very often you may top the 17th tee shot, but not when the tee is behind the rough ground.
In front of the 18th tee, a bunker and cop have how been erected.
A scuffle … is not precisely the same as a top but means a hard badly hit low shot that “sort of” plays at ducks and drakes along the links and ought always to be punished.
Besides the tee shots, you may at Hoylake top shots through the green very frequently and also a good few approach shots.
The air is grand, the turf about the best I know, and the Company first rate, but although I am probably as fond of Hoylake Green as anybody, it is not a good championship course ….
I am, Sir. &c.
A MEMBER OF THE R.L.G.C.
(Golf [London], 6. March 1891, pp. 392-93)
We can see that by 1891, among certain British golfers like the one cited above, the idea had gained currency that golf holes should have a fairway-wide cross bunker to trap topped drives, to trap topped fairway shots, and to trap topped approach shots.
Some months after his work at Shinnecock Hills, Davis could have learned from a description of the nine-hole links layout at Birkdale, Lancashire, both that what the Royal Liverpool member cited above wanted at Hoylake and what Davis himself had just done at Shinnecock Hills had been achieved at Birkdale in 1889 through the use of cop bunkers, turf banks, hedges, and hillocks:
At present, the course is only a nine-hole one and the utmost distance between any of the holes does not probably exceed three hundred yards, but the interest and variety are very great….
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The first teeing ground … is at the top of a bank about ten feet high. From this vantage point, the first green can be seen at a distance of about one hundred and thirty yards. The green is about twenty yards square, bounded on three sides by a low cop and on the fourth by the sloping side of a grass-grown sand-hill. Directly between the tee and green, however, at the distance of about fifty yards, there is a high perpendicular bank with willows growing at the top. At the foot of the bank lies sand ….
The tee for the second hole is on top of a pretty high sandy hill …. Between this hill and the second green there is a level stretch of ground and further off a range of low grassy hills, lying amongst which are several bunkers. These difficulties may be easily carried in the drive if a course well to the left be taken, and the green will be then within an iron shot, the only obstacle being a low cop and a small bunker.
The third hole is the longest. The drive is over a conical grassy hill about fifty yards distant and, if only moderately straight, will land the ball on good lying ground. Thence a full iron shot over a double cop will reach the green. This green lies within a range of grass-grown sand-hills lying in the form of a horseshoe and is approached through the open back part of the shoe.
The fourth hole lies over the hills forming the front part of the horseshoe. These hills are full eighty yards from the tee and in the direct line for the hole are about twenty-five feet high. A little to the left of the direct line, the hills are considerably lower, but as at this point there is a very large and deep bunker at their summit, the safer course is to take the direct line for the hole and make the drive over the highest part of the hills. These hills being surmounted by the drive, the ball will lie on turf and an iron shot will reach the green, which, however, must be approached cautiously as it slopes away from the player and there is danger of the ball rolling under the cop at the other side.
The line to the fifth hole lies over two meadows, the difficulty being two low cops and then a high double cop with a straggling willow hedge on the top of the nearer one.
To reach the sixth hole, the line is over a little cop and level grass land towards a break in a long line of sandy hills. A fair drive will carry the ball close to this break in the hills, just on the other side of which the green lies in a cup-like hollow guarded in front … by an insidious bunker.
The seventh hole is an easy one, the only difficulty being a low, broken cop about 120 or 130 yards away.
The eighth hole is behind a range of grass-grown sand-hills which, in the direct line to the hole, and to the left, lie nearer the tee than they do on the right and, in addition, they are of a rough and difficult character, having several small bunkers among them. The judicious plan is, therefore, to play well to the right. The ball will then lie at the foot or just on the slope of the hills and an iron shot will reach the green.
The last hole is within a full iron shot but is a rather nervous one, inasmuch as the stroke has to be played over a fenced-off piece of ground which is out of bounds….
Although there are many difficulties, a bad stroke nowhere suffers unduly, the punishment always being fitted to the crime.
(Golf [London], 9 November 1891, pp. 152-53)
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We can see that by 1889, the anonymous designer of these nine two-shot and one-shot holes at Birkdale implicitly understood that a proper test of golf required, first, that the drive carry a cross hazard and, second, that the approach shot also carry a cross hazard. Several years later, translated to inland sites, these design principles became identified with Tom Dunn.
Moreover, the Birkdale designer also created holes such as the 2nd, 4th, and 8th that required risk and-reward decision-making by thoughtful golfers before they made their drives – an architectural feature that would be celebrated in the early 20th century as the sine qua non of “strategic” golf course architecture.
Although the remarkable Birkdale designer remains anonymous, local golfers gave credit for the course to the Club Secretary, solicitor W.W.P. Shatwell (he also became Club Captain a few years later). At the banquet following an 1892 competition between the Birkdale Golf Club and the Southport Golf Club, a representative of the latter rose to toast the former:
He would couple with the toast the name of Mr. Shatwell …. [who] had been the making of the Birkdale links, and those who had played over them would say they were the very f inest nine hole course in this country.
Every hole had a hazard, and generally a splendid hazard, and he had seen no hazard equal to that on coming to the fourth hole.
(Southport Visitor [Lancashire], 19 April 1892, p.3)
Whether Shatwell was a hands-on designer or merely the head of the Green Committee that hired a golf professional to design the course is unclear.
If Shatwell was indeed the designer, however, he may well have worked in concert with greenkeeper James Barrett (born 1848). It was “a room in the cottage home of James Barrett” on Bedford Road, behind which the course was laid out in the Shaw Hills, that the Club rented as its clubhouse for four shillings per week (Lancashire Evening Post, 5 August 1939, p. 9). Barrett would serve as the Club’s greenkeeper, caddy master, and caretaker for the next thirty years. He also cleaned and repaired golf clubs (Liverpool Daily Post, 17 July 1953, p. 3).
Although the Birkdale course was acknowledged to be “unique” (and “well worthy of a visit from players”), the fact that such a layout emerged in 1889 suggests that the idea of laying out a golf hole with a hazard to be carried by each proper shot on the way to the putting green was “in the air” in the “Old Country.” But how much of this “air” might have been breathed somehow by Davis when he was stranded on his own in the “New World” is unclear (Golf [London], 29 April 1892, p. 123).
It seems to me likely that Davis worked out the Dunn-like nature and placement of his cross bunkers at Shinnecock Hills and Staatsburg on his own. His duplication of Dunn’s ideas is probably analogous to Newton’s duplication of Leibniz’s ideas about calculus. Just as Newton developed calculus in England without knowing anything of the parallel discovery of calculus by Leibniz in France, so Davis, stranded on his own in North America, developed a penal theory of inland golf course architecture without knowing that Dunn was doing the same thing in Europe.
Mind you, we already have reason to suspect that this coincidence is less amazing than it seems on the face of it, for Davis and Dunn not only had a common model for their thinking about ideal golf course hazards – the links of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake – but they also had the example of other golf course designers, as at Birkdale and (as we shall see) at many other layouts in England and Scotland, who were also applying lessons learned at Hoylake to the construction and location of hazards – whether those other layouts were new or old, and whether those other layouts were on links land or on inland sites.
Hoylake Cops, Ditches, and Rushes
At Hoylake, Davis may have begun working as a caddie as soon as the original nine-hole course was laid out in 1869. But whenever it was that he joined the caddie ranks, his work at the club thereafter coincided with changes to the course that were intended to create an 18-hole layout that would serve as a proper test of championship golf.
Davis witnessed both the lengthening and shortening of existing holes, and he witnessed the creation of entirely new holes. When the length of a hole was changed and when a new hole was created, he saw how the placement of hazards was decided in relation to such architecture. Hoylake course planners seem to have been determined to impose carries for certain drives, carries for certain second shots, and carries for certain approach shots. Furthermore, when there was no natural hazard to be found where planners decided a carry should be required, Davis witnessed the development of artificial hazards.
Consequently, when he left for Montreal in 1881, Davis took with him a Hoylake-inspired sense of what types of hazards constituted a proper test of golf and a sense of where such hazards should be located on a hole.
HAZARDS
Davie Strath, friend and rival of Young Tom Morris (each died prematurely, the former in 1879 and the latter in 1875), was loud in his praises of the Hoylake course, where he and young Tom had taught young caddie Willie Davis how to play golf: “The late David Strath … over and over again described it as the best in Britain and dwelt with fondness on its magnificent natural putting greens” (Field, 3 December 1881, p. 819).
Others complained that in comparison with links at St. Andrews, Prestwick, and Montrose, Hoylake lacked bunkers, but by 1881, the golf writer for Field (“a Scotch golfer who has played over every course of note in the kingdom”) was able to counter such criticism: “Bunkers are less plentiful than at the three places named; but deficiency in that respect is amply atoned by the appearances of patches of rank-growing rushes, occasional ditches, and low turf dykes, designated ‘cops’ in the idiom of the district” (Field, 3 December 1881, p. 819).
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In Lancashire, the old word cop seems to have meant the “top or head of anything,” perhaps deriving from the Anglo Saxon word copp, meaning “head, top, or apex” or the Frisian word kopp, also meaning “head.” There was also the word coppy, meaning “small field.”
In 1891, accomplished amateur golfer and golf writer H.S.C. Everard described the course in virtually identical terms:
To play the course properly, pretty straight driving is required, for fields [beyond the boundary cops] that one would rather like to visit on account of the excellence of the lies they afford have to be avoided under penalty of loss of the distance ….
In addition to these, some respectable natural bunkers, supplemented by artificial ones, and rabbit holes, constitute the hazards, the whole reinforced by rushes, bents [the long spikey seed stalks of certain bent grasses], and what are locally known as “cops,” or turf embankments with a sandy ditch on each side.
(Golf, 16 January 1891, p. 274)
Amateur Champion and golf writer Horace Hutchinson made a similar observation the year before:
It is so flat. It looks as if it were going to be uninteresting. But it is not so.
It has corners of fields which stick out in unexpected and cunningly vexatious places; it has “cops,” which is North-country for banks; and it has ditches….
The hazards mentioned under the name of “cop” and “ditch” and “bank” do not sound the right thing, but they are really better than they sound, because the bottom of each ditch is sand, and there is a ditch before each “cop.”
So that, to all golfing intents and purposes, “ditch” and “cop” may be translated “bunker” ….
(Horace Hutchinson, “Links Not Missing IV Hoylake,” Saturday Night, 7 June 1990, pp. 697-8)
Rushes, ditches, and turf dykes: the Hoylake layout down to 1881 taught Davis that these things were perfectly serviceable hazards. Each of these characteristic Hoylake hazards became a model for cross bunker hazards that Davis deployed at Shinnecock Hills in 1891: rushes became what Davis called “small bushes”; ditches, of course, remained “ditches”; and turf dykes became what he called “sand ridges.”
The nature of these hazards was one thing, but just where they were located on a golf hole was also an essential part of Davis’s Hoylake education. He learned that they were to be located in relation to the tee box in such a way as to punish a topped or foozled drive. He learned that on a two-shot hole, they were to be located to test the golfer’s ability to carry a hazard with the second shot. And he learned that they might also be located in front of a putting green to force the golfer to pitch a golf ball over them.
RUSHES
At Hoylake, patches of rushes were to be found here and there along the sides of fairways, as seen in the photograph below. But they were also located strategically between teeing grounds and putting greens.
Figure 117 At Hoylake in 1897, John Ball, Jr, attended by an unidentified caddie, plays from a patch of rushes.
Since it was often difficult even to advance the ball from a lie within the rushes, and since accuracy in the endeavour was always uncertain even when the lie was not bad, this hazard implicitly required a full carry.
And so, such rushes effectively served as cross bunkers.
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Rushes, mind you, were a greater hazard during Davis’s time at Hoylake than they were when the photograph above was taken in 1897, for regular traffic through them wore them down.
As Horace Hutchinson observed in 1890, “there are a few apologies for rushes here and there, but they are so bald and scanty that the golfer need scarcely treat them with deference” (Horace Hutchinson, “Links Not Missing IV Hoylake,” Saturday Night, 7 June 1990, p. 698).
We read of rushes as a troublesome cross bunker in an account of a match at Hoylake between 1879 Open Champion James Anderson and his rival, Westward Ho! Professional James Allan: “[On] the eleventh, both struck off very fine shots, but Allan’s lay unluckily in rushes, and he failed to get his ball forward. Anderson was clear and well up towards the hole” (Field, 18 October 1879, p. 516). Since both hit “very fine drives,” one infers that the proper line of play was over the rushes, of which Anderson was “clear”; Allan, “unluckily,” was not.
Similarly, in a professional tournament played at Hoylake in 1885, the play of Peter Paxton on the 6th hole reveals patches of rushes functioning as a cross bunker: “Driving [on] the sixth hole, his tee shot was among the rushes or rough long grass, and he only drove a half shot out, while he had a ticklish shot to reach the hole, with rushes between him and the green” (Glasgow Herald, 27 April 1885, p. 9). Whether or not the first patch of rushes served as a cross bunker (or was instead a side hazard into which he sliced or hooked his ball) is not clear, but the second patch of rushes “between him and the green” seems indeed to have served as a cross bunker.
A description of the full course in 1887-88 indicates that rushes also served as cross bunkers on many other holes.
On the 7th hole, there were three cross bunkers of different sorts:
[On] the seventh, or ‘Briars Hole,’ the drive is over some rough country [the first cross bunker], and beyond a bed of briars [the second cross bunker], hence the hole’s name.
A good straight drive and a cleek approach, with a wrist iron shot over rushes [the third cross bunker], put you on the green and the hole may be given as 5.
(Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 105).
Davis could see by the example of the “Briars Hole” how three cross bunkers, each requiring to be carried, could be effective in establishing five strokes as proper play for a hole (two strokes allowed for putts).
The same 1887-88 course description identifies two cross bunkers on the next hole:
The eighth, or ‘Dowie Hole,’ is another short hole.
In front of the tee are three small bunkers to catch a topped ball [the first cross bunker], with rushes and uneven ground in front of the green [the second cross bunker].
(Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 105).
Ten years later, Garden Smith observed the same cross bunker in front of the 8th green: “patches of rushes … guard the immediate approach to the hole” (Garden Smith, The World of Golf, p. 115).
​Figure 118 A wide patch of dark rushes serving as a cross bunker in front of the Dowie green is visible in this 1936 photograph. Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 19 June 1936, p. 664.
But it was the cross bunker in front of the 8th tee that seems to have captured Davis’s attention.
Davis could see by the example of the Dowie hole that even a one-shot hole might be laid out both with a cross bunker for the approach shot and with a cross bunker for the tee shot – a practice that he followed on several of his one-shot holes at Newport.
The 1887-88 course description also indicated that the approach shot on the 15th hole (“The Field”) was “over a bed of rushes” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 106).
A “new course” emerged at Hoylake in 1894 – “four holes having been laid out on the recently acquired ground to the left of the sixth or Cop Hole” – and so a good number of the older holes were renumbered, but it seems to have been the approach shot to one of the older holes that Garden Smith described in 1898: “If he plays straight on the [14th] hole, his ball will most likely be caught in the rushes in front of the green” (Golf, 12 June 1894, p. 291; Garden Smith, The World of Golf, p. 118).
I assume that most of the patches of rushes mentioned in the 1880s and 1890s course descriptions cited above were in place when Davis played his last round of golf at Hoylake in March of 1881. For almost ten years, Davis had caddied for golfers trying to play over these obstacles, and for the better part of ten years, Davis himself had played his own shots over them hundreds of times.
And so, I suggest that these Hoylake rushes inspired both Davis’s selection of “small bushes” as an appropriate cross bunker at Shinnecock Hills in the summer of 1891 and his determination of a proper fairway location for these hazards on the 4th and 5th holes, where he planted these bushes in fairway-wide rows to catch a topped or foozled second shot.
DITCHES
Also serving as cross bunkers at Hoylake were ditches – some natural, some artificial – and, of course, Davis placed two ditches on his 3rd hole at Shinnecock Hills and one on his 4th (two of these Shinnecock ditches being supplemented with “sand ridges”).
History does not record a description of Davis’s ditches at Shinnecock Hills, but Hoylake ditches were described by Everard in 1891: “But, oh! Competitor, avoid the ditches like the plague: they are deep, and their bottoms are narrow, neither is there any comfortable rest for the sole of the foot, for they are also narrow” (Golf [London], 16 January 1891, p. 274).
Figure 119 A depiction of a golfer on the Hoylake links breaking his club on the racecourse railings as he makes a backswing. This painting was produced by Francis Powell Hopkins, who signed his paintings as “Major Shortspoon” (a trace of his signature appears bottom left). Circa 1880.
Some of these ditches were probably built for the racecourse at Hoylake where the Liverpool Hunt Club held meetings intermittently for many years and did so annually from 1861 to 1876.
And well after 1876, golfers still had to cope with the railings – both as an object for the ball to avoid in flight and as an impediment to the swing of the golf club when a golfer was near them (as depicted in the painting to the left).
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For instance, the first hole, suitably called “Course,” required a drive over racecourse railings.
In October of 1879, when that year’s Open Champion James Anderson played Westward Ho! golf professional James Allan at Hoylake and Allan was late for the start of their second round, “the umpire directed Anderson to strike off and his ball was over the rails before Allan appeared” (Field, 18 October 1879, p. 516).
It is likely that ditches originally designed for the racecourse also remained hazards on the golf course long after the end of the races.
During their first round of 18 holes in 1879, Anderson and Allan faced with their second shots on the 1st hole a “dyke”: Allan “played … short of the dyke”; “Anderson … went right at it, and cleared, lying on the putting green in two” (Field, 18 October 1879, p. 516). When they played the hole again that day, the same reporter referred to this hazard as a “ditch” (Field, 18 October 1879, p. 516).
In 1891, Everard called this hazard a bunker: on the first hole, “two good drives will get home, but the second has to carry a formidable bunker in front of the green” (Golf, 16 January 1891, p. 274).
This hazard seems to have been made into a fairway-wide cross bunker in 1873: “Considerable improvements have recently been made in the ground. The bunker at the first hole has been lengthened and enlarged” (Field, 26 July 1873, p. 89).
In 1891, Horace Hutchinson described it as “a long bunker just twenty yards short of the hole” (Horace Hutchinson, “Links Not Missing IV Hoylake,” Saturday Night, 7 June 1990, pp. 698). In 1893, Hutchinson called it a “sand ditch”: “Playing to the first hole at Hoylake, the great point of difficulty is to pitch, either with your second drive or with a short iron shot as your third stroke, over a sandy ditch and not run over the putting green” (Horace Hutchinson, Golf [London: Longman, Green & Co., 1893], p. 314).
An 1887-88 description of the course identifies two ditches on the 5th hole: “The fifth, or ‘Long Hole,’ is flat land intersected by two sandy ditches” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 105). In 1891, Everard complained about the first of these ditches: “About a hundred and eighty yards or so from the tee runs a cross ditch at a rather aggravating distance, too far to carry yet near enough to trap a good shot” (Field, 16 January 1891, p. 274) The second ditch on the 5th was where penal golf course required it to be: a “second cross ditch guards the approach to the hole” (Field, 16 January 1891, p. 274). In the1885 match between John Ball tertius and Horace Hutchinson, “The ‘Long Hole’ fell to Mr. Hutchinson by Mr. Ball getting into the [second] ditch” (Field, 25 April 1885, p. 538).
There was an artificial ditch on the 14th hole (an earlier version of which Young Tom Morris had declared his favourite): this hole required “an iron shot … over some rushes and over an artificial ditch which runs very obliquely to the line of fire” (Field, 16 January 1891, p. 274).
And the 1887-88 description of the course identifies a cross ditch on the 15th hole: “The f ifteenth, or ‘Field Hole,’ is a long one. A good drive and brassey take you well down short of the ditch” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 106). In 1891, Everard noted more ditches: “the Field Hole … is by no means easy on account of the obtrusiveness of sundry ditches at various points on the journey” (Golf [London], 16 January 1891, p. 4).
In 1872, a player who was until this hole leading in a championship match for an important club medal came to grief in this ditch:
At the “Field” or fifteenth hole, he was most unlucky, his second stroke (with the mid spoon) landed the ball in the ditch, deep in water, opposite the hole.
Unfortunately, he attempted to play it out with his niblick and failed after three shots; and he then had to lift it and lose a stroke, ultimately holing in eleven ….
The “Field” hole proved fatal, and he lost the medal by two strokes.
(Field, 19 October 1872, p. 385)
Virtually from the beginning, rushes and ditches served admirably as cross bunkers at Hoylake – and, in turn, they served Davis admirably as models for his use of fairway-wide ditches and rows of small bushes at Shinnecock Hills – but the cross bunker for which Hoylake became most famous was the turf dyke or “cop.”
And Davis would try to duplicate this hazard, too.
COPS
Turf dykes were widely used in Britain for a variety of non-golfing purposes. They could mark property lines or boundaries between farmer’s fields. They could serve as enclosures for livestock. They could constitute a causeway through marshy ground. They could serve as a ridge of earth to prevent encroachment by the sea during unusually high tides.
The latter seems to have been the original purpose of the cops on “The Warren” at Hoylake where the golf course was first laid out in 1869. As newspapers observed before the Open championship hosted by Royal Liverpool in 1930, “there are hundreds of yards of cops. The latter consist of low banks raised artificially to keep back flood water, and on the awkward side of most of them lies a sandy trench which is a punishing form of hazard” (Yorkshire Evening Post, 21 June 1930, p. 4).
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Most of the low cops that survive today at Royal Liverpool mark course boundaries and therefore represent for golfers an out of-bounds danger (as in the case of the zigzag cop seen below).
Figure 120 A contemporary photograph of low cops remaining as out-of-bounds markers on the course at Royal Liverpool Golf Club to this day.
But in the 1870s and 1880s, there were cops of a similar nature that served as internal bunkers, and they were arranged to cross fairways perpendicularly to the line of play.
And many of these cops arranged as cross bunkers may have been artificially created – the intention being to introduce at architecturally strategic locations the punishing function of the original cops.
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Hoylake’s first artificial cop bunker may have been invented when certain changes were made to the eighteen-hole course early in 1873:
“Considerable improvements have recently been made in the ground. The bunker at the first hole has been lengthened and enlarged, while a new bunker has been introduced at ‘the briers’ [sic], the seventh hole” (Field, 26 July 1873, p. 89).
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This “new bunker … introduced at ‘the briers’” may have been not just “new” to Royal Liverpool, but “new” to golf: an artificial cop bunker.
Figure 121 Detail from 1897 photograph above shows John Ball, Jr, playing from rushes across a cop bunker.
Garden Smith described the cop on the “Rushes” in 1898 (when it was numbered 13): “Only 80 or 90 yards lie between the tee and the next hole – the “Rushes” – but the intervening ground is rushes all the way and terminates in a bunker surmounted by a cop, directly behind which the hole is cut” (Garden Smith, The World of Golf, p. 117).
Dr. J.G. McPherson observed in 1902: “We have little cops [at Hoylake] just over which some holes are placed; and these test fine approaching” (Dr. J. G. McPherson, “Impressions of the International Match,” Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, vol 77 no 508 [June 1902], p. 447).
The “Cop” hole is perhaps the most famous example of this use of a cop bunker before the green.
According to Bernard Darwin, the “Cop” hole was the 5th hole on the original 1869 George Morris layout, the furthest hole from the start of the course, after which “the course turned back towards the Royal Hotel” (Bernard Darwin, “The History of Hoylake,” Country Life, 3 June 1933, p. 600).
Was the cop that is acknowledged in the hole’s name part of “The Warren” before the golf course was laid out, or was it made by George Morris, or perhaps by his son Jack?
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In 1879, now playing as the 6th hole, the “Cop” factored in the famous match between Anderson and Allan: “Driving for the sixth hole, Allan made a fine tee stroke, while his opponent was weak, and landed in an artificial bunker, which cost him the hole” (Dundee Advertiser [Scotland], 14 October 1879, p. 10). The “bunker” in question seems to have been the cop for which the hole was named, and it was “artificial.”
Whatever the case may be with regard to the origin of the cop, it played an important role in match play. In the 1885 match at Hoylake between John Ball tertius and Horace Hutchinson, the latter came a cropper at the Cop hole (at that time, the 6th): “Mr. Hutchinson failed to reach the green of the Cop hole by a spared spoon shot from the tee and lay heavily in sand behind the cop” (Field, 25 April 1885, p. 538). Hutchinson lost the hole.
In Ball’s 1890 match against Lesley Balfour, Ball reached the green on “The Cop” with his first shot, but “Mr. Balfour … was short of the green with a cleek shot off the tee and got badly bunkered in one of those sandy ditches, with a turf wall behind them, which are the distinguishing feature of Hoylake Links” (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 3 May 1890, p. 3). Balfour lost the hole.
Note, however, that the “Cop” hole doubly justified its name: it had a second cop bunker. In 1891, Everard described the positions of the two turf dykes on the 6th hole: “the tee is usually a few yards behind a turf fence which effectually stops the progress of a too skimming shot; at a distance of a hundred and forty yards or so is a ‘cop,’ which must be carried to reach the hole” (Golf [London], 16 January 1891, p. 274). Later the same year, Hutchinson provided a similar description of the two cop bunkers:
It is called the “cop” hole because there is a “cop” just before the hole, into which you will go if you hit your ball indifferently.
If you hit your ball worse than indifferently, you may make intimate acquaintance with a nearer and dearer – that is, more costly – “cop” just in front of the tee.
(Horace Hutchinson, “Links Not Missing IV Hoylake,” Saturday Night, 7 June 1990, pp. 698).
In 1898, Garden Smith makes clear that the first cop was not to be taken lightly: “About six yards in front of the tee runs the cop to catch a topped or insufficiently lofted ball …. A high shot is essential at this hole. It is true there is a telegraph wire overhead, but the cop below is worse” (Garden Smith, The World of Golf, p. 113)
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The shortest one-shot hole on the course, “The Cop Hole” reinforced the lesson of “Dowie”: Davis could see the penal architectural virtue of each of the two main uses to which the cop bunker would be put by subsequent architects: a cop bunker placed in front of the tee “effectually stops the further progress of a too skimming shot”; a cross bunker placed in front of the green requires a properly hit lofted approach to the green.
In 1895, Willie Davis named his own 165-yard hole at Newport “The Cop Hole.”
Note that the Hoylake layout did not require pitch-shot approaches on all holes, as Hutchinson observed in 1891:
Some holes are specially adapted for that running-up-with-the-putter stroke which its scorners speak of as the “underground.” Other holes, again, just over the “cops,” need as finished a mastery of the pitching stroke as North Berwick itself. (Horace Hutchinson, “Links Not Missing IV Hoylake,” Saturday Night, 7 June 1990, pp. 698).
On two-shot and three-shot holes at Hoylake, cops might be arranged as barriers to be carried with tee shots – as on the 18th hole, according to the 1887-88 course description: “In driving for the eighteenth, or ‘Home hole,’ a cop and ditch face you on the tee to catch a topped ball” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 105). And this was no “natural” cop original to “The Warren,” as we can see from an account of John Ball’s play on this hole in 1887: “Driving for the last hole, Mr. Ball had the evil fortune to send his ball into the artificial bunker which faces the teeing ground” (Field, 6 August 1887, p. 51).
Similarly, in their famous match at Hoylake in October of 1879, Anderson and Allan faced a cop as they played from the 13th tee: “Anderson, still leading [the match], played off a good long safety shot, while Allan hit out with all his force and flew the cop, giving him thirty yards advantage” (Field, 18 October 1879, p. 517). Ten years later, the 1887-88 description of this hole shows that the same decision faced players: “On the thirteenth, … a long drive will carry you over bunker or cop” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 106).
Note that the writer above refers to the turf dyke in question as the “bunker or cop.” Elsewhere in his 1887-88 description of the course, the same writer refers to a bunker so wide that it crossed both the ninth and tenth fairways, such that players on the ninth faced it on their second shot, whereas players on the tenth tee were required to make “a good drive over the bunker mentioned in connection with the ninth hole” (Golfing Annual 1887-88, ed. C. Robertson Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1888], p 106). It seems likely that this so-called “bunker” that crossed the 9th and 10th fairways was in fact a cop bunker.
The Hoylake cop bunker would soon be recognized by other golf clubs as an excellent hazard. In fact, it became a standard feature on hundreds of golf courses in Britain, Ireland, Europe, and North America by the turn of the century.
But then golf course architecture changed: cop bunkers fell out of approval, as did all forms of fairway-wide cross bunkers. And even Hoylake would feel the effect of this change in fashion when its own Harold Hilton offered the following criticism in 1906:
I came back to Hoylake after an absence of fourteen months, and the first thing that struck me was that it is an ugly-looking course, with its numerous turf banks and hazards right across the links….
It provides an excellent test, partly for the reason that … a man has to play with his head, and partly because it is a course on which many risks may be taken, provided the player feels inclined to do so.
But there are too many hazards stretched right across the course.
For instance, take the bunker which stretches across the course about 220 yards from the third tee. In the first days of the Championship week, literally every player had to play short …. It was making a farce of what might be made a good hole…. It would improve the hole if the centre of the hazard was filled up so as to allow the long smiters occasionally to have a go to get home in two….
Again, the next hole, “The Cop,” is far from ideal…. If that cross bunker was taken away in the centre, and a few more hazards introduced round the green, “The Cop” hole at Hoylake might be made worthy of the name of a good short hole.
But this is not the only case at Hoylake where advisable alterations could be made, as whilst the cross bunkers running right across the course are essential in a few cases to add variety to the links, still, they are gradually becoming a thing of the past and the intelligent men who lay out golf courses are gradually reducing them to a comparative minimum.
(Harold Hilton, “General Deductions on Greenkeeping,” in Golf Greens and Greenkeeping, ed. by Horace G. Hutchinson [London: Country Life, 1906], p. 184-86)
Nineteen-year-old Willie Davis no doubt left for North America with the Hoylake turf dyke or “cop” bunker imprinted on his mind as the sine qua non of a proper golf course. In using Hoylake’s architectural principles in North America in the early 1890s, Davis was simply doing the only thing he knew how.
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This is how a teenager who had perhaps played just one golf course in his whole life developed his own style of penal golf course architecture on the inland golf courses he designed: he created layouts to approximate the challenge posed by Hoylake’s cop bunkers.
1891 Royal Ottawa, 1891 Shinnecock Hills, 1893 and 1894 Staatsburg and Newport … they were all echoes of Hoylake!
Cops Proliferate
The Hoylake cop was copied.
From the mid-1880s to the early 1890s, we find versions of the Hoylake cop in Scotland, England, and Ireland.
Scotland Mid-1880s
By the mid-1880s, it was being copied by a number of well-established Scottish clubs. Some simply wanted to make a particular golf shot more difficult on a pre-existing hole. Other clubs that were laying out entirely new courses built cops on a grander scale.
At Troon, the 18-hole course was finally completed in 1884. We learn from an account of a match in 1888 that at that time the approach shot on the 15th hole had to carry a turf dyke: “At the ‘Garden,’ [D.] Leitch got all right on the green in two, but [W.] Doleman’s like [his second shot] struck the turf dyke short of the green, and, as he did not recover his lost ground, Leitch was one up” (Ayr Advertiser, 18 May 1888, p. 7). It is not clear whether this turf dyke was built specifically for the golf course or was a pre-existing feature on the land. And, either way, it is not clear whether it was part of the course in 1884 or was added sometime closer to the newspaper report of 1888. But a turf dyke was used as a legitimate links hazard.
We know that a significant turf dyke was specially built on a new course at Montrose in the spring of 1886. It was deemed necessary to counter criticism that the final holes of the new layout would not be sufficiently difficult:
New Course at Montrose
Satisfactory progress is being made with the work carrying out the new circular course at Montrose….
Keen golfers who were doubtful as to the possibility of getting holes hazardous enough at the end of the course must now be satisfied that there will be hazard enough there in all conscience…. That portion of the course will give them as much room for science as any course in the kingdom….
Workmen were yesterday busily engaged constructing an artificial hazard between the 17th and 18th holes.
A deep trench has been dug some distance from the tee at the 17th hole and turf has been built up some feet above the level of the natural turf so that to clear it the ball must be well lifted off the tee, while anyone foozling his tee shot will received deserved punishment.
(Aberdeen Press Journal, 1 May 1886, p. 2)
Similarly, when a ladies’ course was laid out at Prestwick in 1886, it incorporated turf dykes: “The links are understood to be the most difficult that have ever been laid out for ladies, as they are full of hazards of every description, such as sand bunkers, whins, and turf dykes” (Ayr Advertiser, 2 September 1886, p. 4).
Lancashire 1886
In March of 1886, an 18-hole course designed for the new Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club was laid out across cop-defined fields: golfers would play 18 or 19 shots over these cops. This cross cop layout of March 1886 was probably designed by founding member Alexander Hamilton Doleman (1836-1914).
The latter was one of four famous golfing brothers from Musselburgh, the others being John (1926-1916), William (1838-1918), and Francis (1848-1929). Their father, William, was at first a tailor, but he became in 1838 the Race Stand Attendant at the Musselburgh racecourse, and so he also looked after the “boxes” (a form of locker) that were rented by the golf club’s members. His sons were allowed to play on the golf course, and they all did so, learning to play the game on the town’s nine-hole course just off its main street. It would become one of the most important courses in Scotland, hosting six Open Championships between 1874 and 1889. As it still does today, the golf course played into and out of the infield of the Musselburgh racecourse.
Figure 122 John Doleman, Golf Illustrated, vol 2 (20 October 1899), p. 41.
The oldest brother, John (1926-1916), was the only brother not to play in an Open Championship.
Mind you, he was present at the Open Championship of 1870, although not as a competitor. Instead, he played with his three brothers in the exhibition matches at Prestwick held the day after Young Tom’s victory: “John Doleman and William Doleman played a match of two rounds (24 holes) against A. Doleman and F. Doleman. John and William won by one hole” (Glasgow Herald, 17 September 1870, p. 3).
John settled in Nottingham in 1884 and founded the Notts Golf Club, becoming known as the father of Nottingham golf.
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The youngest brother, Francis (“Frank”), was the only one to become a golf professional.
In the 1860s, he worked at each of the golf clubs on the Wimbledon Common (the London Scottish Club and the Royal Wimbledon Club), becoming the professional at Royal Wimbledon until replaced by Tom Dunn in 1871. Then he returned to the Edinburgh area, working a short while as a golf professional before becoming foreman at McEwan & Son Club Makers, which he purchased in 1895 and thereafter ran under his own name.
Figure 123 William Doleman (1838-1918), circa 1890.
As we know, William became an accomplished golfer, playing at the highest levels against both amateurs and professionals from the 1860s to the early 1900s. Although competing as an amateur, he nonetheless had easy and familiar access to Scotland’s top golf professionals and at the 1870 Open Championship coaxed Davie Strath and Jamie Anderson into helping him and his brother, A.H. Doleman, invent the concept of par (see my essay “Ottawa Golf and the Bogey Man: How the Ottawa Golf Club Became the First to Bring Colonel Bogey to North America” at donaldjchilds.ca).
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A.H. Doleman was from the beginning the most academically inclined of the four brothers.
He attended the Bridge Street Academy in Musselburgh, graduating as one of the top students.
Figure 124 Alexander Hamilton Doleman (1836-1918). Golf (London), vol 6 no 150 (28 July 1893), p. 345.
He was appointed master of the National Schools, South Shore, Blackpool, in 1858, but after five years opened a successful private school. Ten years later, he entered Cambridge University (“he played an important part in introducing the Royal and Ancient game to Cambridge”), graduating three years later and working for four years as a master of a classical school at Sedburgh, Yorkshire (Nottingham Journal [England], 28 September 1914, p. 2). He then returned to Blackpool and established the High School at South Shore.
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Upon his retirement in 1888, a local newspaper celebrated his fundamental role in educating a generation of young men in Blackpool and noted:
“Nor have his sympathies been confined to mental exercises; he is fond of field sports and useful recreations and has been the guiding sprit of the Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club” (Blackpool Gazette & Herald [England], 13 April 1888, p. 8). Doleman would be honored in due course as “a Father of Fylde Golf” (see the image below from a local publication celebrating his influence on the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire).
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In love with golf since his childhood in Musselburgh, but finding no golf courses in the Blackpool area, he played golf on his own makeshift golf course in the sand dunes along the seacoast of the Irish Sea near Blackpool.
Figure 125 A.H. Doleman, "A Father of Fylde Golf."
In fact, “It is said that A.H. Doleman and Frank Doleman as far back as 1860 … played along the sand dunes between South Shore and St Annes” (Dundee Evening Telegraph [Scotland], 22 September 1914, p. 4).
Upon his return to the area in the late 1870s, Doleman once more played golf on his own in dunes near South Shore for five years, but found no people from Blackpool would join him, so he began to play a little bit further south in the fields around nearby St. Annes in 1885, where four local gentlemen overcome with curiosity about what he was up to finally joined him, and soon thereafter they founded with him (along with fourteen others) the (now Royal) Golf Club of Lytham and St Anne’s (regular host of the Open Championship).
According to E.A. Nickson, when the Lytham and St Annes Golf Club was formed in February of 1886, “only A.H. Doleman and Talbot Fair had played golf or even seen it played” (Edward Anthony Nickson, The Lytham Century: A History of Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club, 1886 – 1986 [Lancashire, England: self-published, 1985, p. 8). The letter that was sent to local gentry by Fair and his brother announcing plans to form a golf club mentioned that “very suitable ‘Links’ can be obtained close to St. Annes’ station” (Nickson, p. 6). Of this letter, Nickson observes: “This was signed by J.T. and J.S. Fair, but there is no doubt they had been prompted by Alexander Doleman” (Nickson p. 6).
This land by the railway station may well have been where Doleman had been playing golf on his own since 1885. In any event, he is probably the person who selected the site. His opinion on such matters was widely respected in the Club. For example, when the Club convened to consider the possibility of moving to a new site in 1890, various possibilities were considered until Doleman spoke:
Mr. Doleman said that at first, he did not approve of the site proposed, but he had spent several hours there and examined it carefully and found that it would make good ground provided that money was spent upon it.
It was agreed that the Council be empowered to enter into negotiations for the land ….
(Nickson p. 15)
In the end, there was no need in 1890 to move to this new site, but we can see that Doleman’s opinion on possible alternative sites had been determinative.
The 1886 course laid out in fields alongside the railroad was ready for play just over two weeks after the above letter was sent on February 23rd, 1886. Although the original layout has often been attributed to George Lowe, afterwards the long-serving professional of Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club, Lowe was not actually hired until the summer of 1888 (Blackpool Gazette & Herald [England], 20 July 1888, p. 3). Furthermore, it was not until 1887 that Jack Morris was asked to come from Royal Liverpool to improve the course. And it was not until the fall of 1886 (after no golf had been played during the summer) that the new Club got around to arranging for a professional keeper of the golf ground: “on 2nd September, ‘Lewis,’ the groundman from the Lytham cricket club, was engaged to attend to the golf ground during the winter” (Nickson p. 6). It seems likely that Doleman himself not only chose the site of the original golf course but also laid out the original 18 holes.
The course was laid out by the beginning of March 1886 and play was underway in mid-March:
The course for the playing of this game [called golf] is situate to the north of St. Annes and is a circuitous route of about three miles….
It was decided to commence play on Saturday next, weather permitting, and to have a special Opening day at a date to be afterwards fixed.
(Blackpool Gazette & Herald [England], 5 March 1886, p. 3).
Throughout March, so many spectators came out to observe this exotic new game that the Club undertook to publish advice about how to watch the golfers – and this advice reveals that many of the golf holes were routed across what must have been pre-existing cops:
The question of placing some restraint on the movements of spectators was … discussed, and we may just mention as a caution to those watching the game that serious consequences might result from a person being struck by a golf ball in its flight.
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Spectators should, therefore, be careful to keep well out of the line of the players and never to precede them or cross their track but always keep well in their rear.
We may also state that the stiles over the cops are placed for the purposes of the Links only.
They are in no sense intended as public thoroughfares, but in no case should the cops be crossed otherwise than by the stiles.
(Blackpool Gazette & Herald [England], 2 April 1886, p. 3)
The cops were not somehow artificially constructed for the golfers between the founding of the club on 27 February 1886 and the report about the “circuitous route” of the “three mile” layout one week later on 5 March 1886: there was neither the time nor the manpower to construct the dozen or so turf dykes across which the holes were routed.
Rather, as at Hoylake, the cops in question were part of the landscape long before the Lyham and St. Annes Golf Club was founded. They appear on the February 1889 map of the course shown below.
Figure 126 February 1889 Course Plan. Nickson p. 11. The cops appear above as diagonal lines. They presumably once marked the boundaries of farmers’ fields.
At the time of the drawing of the map above, 10 of the holes were routed across one or more of the cops (which appear as diagonal lines).
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Given the patchwork of cops or turf dykes already in place on the site chosen for the original golf course, all that was required in laying out the course was to decide the route of the holes across them. But since these cops had not been designed with golfers in mind, they had no gaps within them by which golfers could make their way through – in contrast to the artificial cops designed by Tom Dunn (and his imitators) throughout the 1890s. And so, before play could begin, stiles had to be added so that golfers could make their way over the cops without danger to themselves or to the cops.
An image of the stiles appears in the 1890 sketch below showing the 1st tee in the foreground and the 1st fairway cop in the background.
Figure 127 Sketch of the 1st tee of the Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London) in 1890. Reproduced in Nickson, p. 15. A stile appear on the right side of the cop. Part of another stile appears at the left margin of the sketch.
The cops were generally about six feet high, as we can tell from accounts of them in Scottish newspapers that seem to have been fascinated by these cops. In 1892, the Glasgow Herald observed: “the chief hazard consists of a number of turf dykes, or ‘cops,’ as they are called locally, mostly about six feet high, which have to be crossed eighteen times in the course of a round” (Glasgow Herald, 31 October 1892, p. 9). In the same month, The Edinburgh Evening Dispatch made a similar observation:
The line of play is intersected by a number of turf dykes of “cops.”
These “cops” are, as a rule, about six feet in height and they form a feature of the green, having to be crossed in the course of a round, even if the line be kept all through, some eighteen times.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 28 October 1892, p. 4)
One of the earliest photographs of the golf course suggests that at least one of the original cops was not six feet high.
Figure 128 Photograph of the 18th green "circa 1887" in Nickson p. 19.
Said to have been taken around 1887, the photograph above shows a golfer standing on the 18th green, with the background showing the railroad as it departs from the St Annes station, the gas works on the golf course side of the railroad, and a low cop running through the fairway between the putting green and the gas works.
It may be that John Morris and/or George Lowe recommended that the original cops be made higher. And such a recommendation may have been just one part of a project of making the cops a more significant challenge to golfers.
We can see from the sketch above that the dykes had been modified by 1890 to include a fence along the top. These fences will have occasionally prevented golf balls from passing over the cops, but they seem not so much to have been erected as a barrier to golf balls, but rather as a barrier to players or spectators who might want to climb over the cops. Whether cops were built by farmers or by golf course designers, degradation of these turf dykes and cops by human or animal traffic was recognized as a perpetual danger throughout the 1880s, 1890s, and early 1900s.
We also know from an article published in The Scotsman at the beginning of 1890 that the cops at Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club were by that time fronted or backed by ditches: “There is not so much sand hazard as on some Scottish links, but there are probably quite a sufficient number; and there are a great many turf dykes or ‘cops’ about 6 feet high with a ditch on one or both sides” (Scotsman, 10 February 1890, p. 5). And these ditches were filled with sand or water: “At the foot of almost every one of the turf dykes is a ditch with either sand or water in it, and these, as can be readily understood, form a most dangerous hazard for topped balls” (Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 28 October 1892, p. 4)
Whether these ditches were a feature of the cops when the course was laid out and brought into play between the end of February and beginning of March 1886 is not clear. I suspect that the priority of the course planner was simply to get putting greens ready for play and to place stiles on the cops. The ditches may have been recommended by Jack Morris in 1887 or by George Lowe in 1888.
Any way one looks at the matter, it seems likely that the Hoylake cop was the inspiration for the original layout at Royal Lytham and St Annes, from the identification in February of 1886 of cop defined fields as a place for a proper golf course, to the routing of holes across cops by the beginning of March, and to the excavation of ditches before and after them. Although Doleman played golf informally in the dunes between South Side and St Annes, he played golf formally at Royal Liverpool, where he was a member in the early 1880s. The design of that course no doubt shaped his awareness of how cops could serve as a proper golf course hazard. And George Lowe had worked at Royal Liverpool for twelve years, serving under Jack Morris, who had added artificial cops to the existing cops at Hoylake – cops that his father George Morris had incorporated into his nine-hole 1869 layout.
Everyone who shaped the original golf course of the Royal and Lytham Golf Club had been shaped as a designer by the Hoylake course.
Oh, Hoylake! What had you done?
Early 1890s Cops in Ireland, Scotland, and England
When the County Down golf course was laid out by Old Tom Morris between 1889 and 1890, it seemed obvious to him that the 5th hole should be routed across existing turf dykes in the fields found on that part of the property:
The fifth hole is exasperating, not because of its length, which is 550 yards, but [because] you pass through a series of fields, and the boundaries of these fields are turf dykes, and if you roll up to a dyke, you may be thankful if you only spend one shot in lifting it over.
The hole ought to be done in six, but a double figure may be your fate if you forget that golf should be played with the head as well as with the hands.
(Glasgow Herald, 6 September 1890, p. 4)
Just as his younger brother George Morris had incorporated ready-made turf dykes into his 1869 layout at Hoylake, so Old Tom had availed himself of “natural” turf dykes at County Down.
And Old Tom deployed cops on his twelve-hole inland layout at Ramsay Golf Club (Scotland) in 1892. According to Golf (London) editor Robertson, “The links are, for an inland course, excellent, there being sufficient cop bunkers and other hazards to make it an exceedingly interesting one” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 9 July 1892, p. 631).
Just before this work at Ramsay, Old Tom had laid out a 16-hole course at Muirfield at the beginning of 1891 (it was described then as easily extendable to eighteen holes). And as an 18 hole course, it hosted the 1892 Open Championship, after which its artificial hazards were criticized:
The course over which the championship was played did not meet with anything like general favour … and that it leaves a good deal to be desired few will not but admit.
​
Artificial hazards, however cleverly placed, can never rival the formidable natural difficulties of many courses, and there is no doubt that Muirfield does not exercise the judgment as do many greens of lesser note, to say nothing of St. Andrews, Prestwick, Carnoustie, and other famous links….
The course is essentially the course for a steady player, for careless strokes are liable to punishment, but it cannot be described as an exacting “sporting” links as yet.
(Edinburgh Evening News, 24 September 1892, p. 2)
In the wake of criticism of this sort, substantial alterations were immediately planned to stiffen the course. The decision was made to add even more artificial hazards – especially cops:
At the third, the tee has been put back … and a turf “cop” built, which materially increases the difficulty or reaching the green in 2 ….
The putting green [of the 9th hole] is some sixty yards or so farther back, guarded by an artificial sandy ditch, while on the left of the big bunker has been constructed a long “cop” in serpentine line, some 60 yards in length.
This serves to … to catch a shot – not necessarily a very bad one – from the [9th] tee going to the ninth [green].
A player must therefore do one of two things: make up his mind to carry the bunker on the right, a long and risky shot, or steer between the two, a very narrow passage some thirty yards which leaves but little margin of error.
True, he might play short, but then … a long shot with a wooden club would be necessary to reach the flag ….
The eleventh is also longer and, in addition, the sinuous “cop” bunker before alluded to has to be crossed (in good play) at the second shot. Happy the man … who can drive far enough from the tee to cross with cleek or iron.
At [the hole named] Archerfield, a turf dyke now guards the green.
(Golf, 14 April 1893, p. 70).
Even more cops were added over the next year or so, and they proved to be so fierce that it was necessary to have “various bunkers doctored” before the 1896 Open Championship:
This improvement of the bunkers, we may say, has been carried out all round.
They have all a more natural appearance than they had before, where a stiff straight turf wall, without any slope or bend about it, bounded a narrow hazard in front of the green.
The hazard has in each case been widened, the turf dyke has been rounded on the side next the putting-green, and its abruptness also sloped away on the approaching side so as to give a fairer test of a good bunker shot.
(Golf, 1 May 1896, cited in John Kerr, The Golf Book of East Lothian [Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1896], p. 228)
Figure 129 Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 15 February 1893, p. 4.
Contemporaneous with the adding of such cops at Muirfield was the adding of similar cross bunkers to a new course laid out at nearby Luffness early in 1893.
An Edinburgh newspaper drew attention to this new style of bunkering and described it as an importation from England: “with ‘par’ play, the second hole, where the only element of difficulty is a turf dyke or ‘cop,’ familiar to players on English greens, should be 4” (Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 15 February 1893, p. 4).
Attention to the map of the new Luffness course (seen to the left) shows that in addition to the “turf dyke” on the 2nd hole, there were similar cross bunkers on the 1st and 3rd holes, too. Consistent with Tom Dunn’s style of penal architecture, the two-shot 1st hole had a ditch to be carried with the drive and a cross bunker to be carried with the second shot, and the two-shot 3rd hole similarly had a pair of bunkers (with a narrow avenue between them) to be crossed with the drive, and it had a pond to be carried with the approach shot.
When George Morris incorporated the existing turf dykes on “The Warren” at Hoylake (originally formed as barriers to flood water) into his nine-hole layout to serve as troublesome hazards, he probably did not imagine that what the local people called cops would soon come to be recognized as a “genuine” golf course hazard – even when such cops were artificial. Yet we can see that by 1893, when plans for “improvements and alterations” were announced by the Dumbarton Golf Club, the artificial cop was indeed regarded as a genuine golf course hazard:
The course, which is a nine-hole one, and which is recognised as … possessing putting greens almost unequalled in the West of Scotland, is to undergo considerable alteration.
Although the course has quite a number of “hazards,” of a kind, the defect hitherto has been the absence of what are regarded as genuine golf hazards, namely, bunkers, turf dykes, etc., but this is shortly to be remedied….
On the course towards the long hole, a large turf dyke has been raised with a bunker behind, and an additional hazard [of the same sort] is to be raised so as to make approaching here as difficult as possible.
​
On the course to the Leven hole, two hazards are to be raised ….
About midway between the teeing ground and the putting green of the short hole a substantial barrier is to be erected which will penalize defective driving.
The course to the Marsh hole is to remain as at present, while to the hole across [it], one or two barriers will be also raised.
(Lennox Herald [Dumbarton], 21 January 1893, p. 4)
By 1893, not only were cops being raised as material barriers on golf courses in the home of golf; there seems to have been no conceptual barrier to accepting cop bunkers “as genuine golf hazards.”
In March of 1894, the new Blackpool Golf Club laid out a course on fields adjoining the original Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s course. Founder A.H. Doleman “asked a gentleman to come from Edinburgh and assist him in laying the ground” (Fleetwood Chronicle, 9 March 1894, p. 8). This person may have been his brother Frank, a former golf professional who had become the foreman for McEwan & Son Club Makers. We know that in mid-March of 1894, Frank was on site – installed in the temporary clubhouse of the new Blackpool Golf Club selling McEwan clubs and balls to new members.
On this course, “ditches, hedges, cops, and stone walls form[ed] the principal hazards”:
Three walls, a cop, and a bunker guarding the green have all to be surmounted before we hole out [on the second] ….
Another full shot off the tee is required to carry the cop going to the fourth hole …. The green is close to another cop ….
There are … few long holes on the course, and, as a rule, little punishment, with the exception of these cop bunkers, [is] meted out to an erratic shot ….
To get to the fifth hole, we come back over the cop once more ….
[On the three-shot seventh,] the soft stopping breeze necessitates a long carry to get over the cop, immediately behind which the green lies ….
Driving off to the home green, we do not care for the way the cop is brought into use as a bunker, running as it does a good way straight down the line of the course.
(Manchester Courier [England], 18 September 1894, p. 7)
The last sentence quoted above implies that (as was the case at the adjoining 1886 Royal Lytham and St Annes course and the 1869 Hoylake course), the cops or turf dykes were in place before any golf course was laid out and that holes were routed in relation to them.
​
The photograph below (dating from the early 1900s) seems to show one of the cops that bounded the property of the Blackpool Golf Club.
Figure 130 detail from a postcard circa 1909 showing Rougier flying over the Blackpool Aerodrome. A cop runs through the centre of the photo, apparently with a sand ditch along the side. Another cop bunker may appear at the left margin of the photograph.
The proliferation of cops in Scotland, England, and Ireland throughout the mid-1880s and early 1890s should not be surprising.
On the one hand, cops became familiar hazards to Scottish golf professionals who played matches at Royal Liverpool and Royal Lytham and St. Annes. These men returned to Scotland with a conviction that cop bunkers were hazards appropriate both for links courses and for inland courses.
On the other hand, from 1890 onwards, cops became “familiar to players on English greens” in particular because of Scottish architect Tom Dunn’s deployment of cops for his inland golf course designs.
Tom Dunn's Diverging Copy of Cops
More than any other architect, Tom Dunn was associated with the emergence of golf in the South of England in the 1890s, and especially in the London area. When he died at the beginning of the twentieth century, the sheer abundance of his work was recognized: “Tom Dunn, the well-known professional, … has laid nearly all the courses in the neighbourhood of London” (Ealing and Acton Gazette [England], 2 February 1901, p. 2). Numbers told the story: “He holds the record in the way of greenmaking, having laid out about 150 courses in his day, including the majority of those around London” (The Scotsman, 6 May 1902, p. 8).
And these London golf courses were replete with the cop bunker for which Tom Dunn became famous – and then infamous. Implicitly acknowledging the overwhelming architectural influence that this golf professional from Musselburgh had exerted upon London’s golf culture, his detractors disparaged his artificial hazards as “Cockney Bunkers.”
Dunn had first come to London from Musselburgh in 1870 to serve as the golf professional for the London Scottish Golf Club, which played on a seven-hole course on Wimbledon Common. He extended this course to 18 holes in 1871. Ten years later, however, when the Club split into the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club at one end of the course and the London Scottish Golf Club at the other, Dunn returned to Scotland to work at North Berwick.
But he was brought to London again in December of 1888 to lay out an 18-hole course on Tooting Bec Common, where the Tooting Bec Golf Club had just a month before laid out a primitive provisional nine-hole course. He was hired by the Club late in 1889 to serve as its golf professional. He did so for the next five years and so Tooting Bec became the base from which he travelled the south of England laying out new golf courses.
The nature of the artificial bunkers that he originally designed at Tooting Bec is indicated by a partial description of the first four holes:
At the first four holes, the tee shots have to be driven over thick banks of whins that are fatal to topped balls; at the fifth hole, there is a beautiful iron approach across a very difficult hazard, and the sixth also requires the most accurate iron play.
The other holes are of much the same character.
(Sporting Gazette, 12 January 1889, p. 46).
​
The phase “thick banks of whins” may suggest that these hazards comprised turf banks topped with gorse bushes. They were not, however, the cop bunkers for which he would become famous.
Still, Dunn apparently thought of his Tooting Bec design as a new stage in his architectural development, as the Club’s secretary, Dr. David Donald, observed: “the outcome of his labours [was] the formation of a pretty, strategical course …. Dunn himself proffered the opinion that he had not laid out, in the course of his career, a better inland course for the sport” (Dr. David Donald, “Tooting Bec Golf Club,” Golfing Annual 1888-89, ed. John Bauchope [London: Horace Cox, 1889], p. 146)
After two days spent laying out the original course at Tooting Bec in December of 1888, Dunn, who was not well, left for Biarritz for several months. His original Tooting Bec layout was revised extensively during the summer of 1889: “the course has been considerably lengthened since the spring … and made more replete with hazards – the second and third hole[s] being a veritable pons asinorum [“stumbling block”] for the reckless or impatient player” (Sporting Gazette, 19 October 1889, p. 1430).
Could these stumbling blocks have comprised the turf dykes for which he became famous – and then infamous?
It seems not.
Secretary Donald provides a description of the 1889 course: on the 1st, “the player has to carry a goodly stretch of bushes”; on the 2nd, there is “a belt of whins in front of the tee”; on the 3rd, there are “bushes in front of the tee”; “the fourth hole is of very nearly the same character”; the 6th has “a ditch in front and an amplitude of bushes left and right to entrap the erratic driver”; the short 8th hole “is a wrist shot with the iron over a clump of bushes”; the short 13th hole “is a cleek shot over furze and a deep narrow ditch”; the green of the 17th hole is reachable with a second shot after “clearing a ditch and furze” with the drive; the 18th is a one-shot hole, but it “is furze all the way from tee to green,” and it “can only be cleared with a strong clean shot” (Donald, Golfing Annual 1888-89, pp. 146-47).
Clearly, there were “stumbling blocks” for drives and/or approach shots on most of the holes, but there was nary a cop bunker in sight. It was bushes, whins, furze – in other words, gorse.
​
The same is true of his nine-hole 1890 layout at Woodford (Essex, England):
The drive from the first tee encounters a hazard consisting of a pond, backed by a large bed of furze ….
The stroke for the second hole is over another bed of furze …. The third hole requires to be played in very much the same manner….
The fourth hole is reached by a full drive over furze…. The fifth hole [has] two ditches … to be crossed….
The sixth hole [has] … as hazards a road, two ditches, and several clumps of furze. There is no special feature [on the seventh] ….
There is, however, more character in the eighth hole, which requires a very fine stroke to carry over a dense bed of furze…. The home hole, though longer, is somewhat similar to the last.
(Golf, 21 November 1890, p. 150)
It was gorse, gorse, gorse, and then more gorse.
The very next year, Dunn’s inclusion of a similar hazard in his redesign of the golf course at Brighton produced a suitable name for this style of hazard: “At certain points where the course is rather open, artificial hazards composed of whin hurdles are erected facing the greens, entailing the necessity of careful approach play” (Golf, 25 September 1891, p. 26).
“Whin hurdles!” What a great name!
These whin hurdles seem to have been analogous to what we might call the “bush hurdles” that Davis built contemporaneously at Shinnecock Hills in July and August of 1891.​
Figure 131 Ashley Park, postcard circa 1899.
It turns out that for use on his inland golf courses in the south of England, Dunn did not invent his own version of the turf dyke or cop bunker until 1890, when George Sassoon (uncle of the famous World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon) asked him to lay out a nine-hole course on the Sassoon family’s estate called Ashley Park at Walton-on-Thames.​ Dunn revealed this fact in 1894 when he gave a reporter a guided tour of his new 18-hole layout on the Turbary Common of Bournemouth’s Meyrick Park.
In December of 1893, the Bournemouth Corporation had invited him to advise the town council about the development of a golf course at the popular southern resort and he was subsequently placed in charge of the construction of the town’s 18-hole municipal course over the next twelve months.
At the official opening of the course at the end of November of 1894, when Dunn and the reporter came to the 2nd hole, Dunn pointed out its cop bunker (the first encountered on the course) and mentioned the origin three years before of what had by 1894 become well known as his distinctive form of hazard:
Away up a long slope, some 220 yards, is the next hole [the 2nd], but between [the tee and the putting green] lies a miniature mountain range, an obstacle that owes its origin to the ingenuity of Mr. Dunn.
Figure 132 Tom Dunn’s " miniature mountain range" on the 11th hole at Meyrick Park golf course, Bournemouth, circa 1894.
In laying out links some three years ago at Walton-on-Thames, he was compelled to invent a new kind of “hazard,” and so introduced “Caledonia stern and wild” in the South.
These diminutive Grampians bar the way, presenting an imposing front of perhaps 100 feet [in width], and of some seven or eight feet in height.
​
Beyond [this cross bunker] is level ground to the hole.
“A full drive and a short iron” is the perplexing description of the play [by Tom Dunn].
(Bournemouth Guardian, 1 December 1894, p. 3)
What the reporter calls the “ingenuity of Mr. Dunn” – as it was expressed in the design and construction of the cop bunker at Bournemouth described as a “miniature mountain range” – was the result of three years of continuing development by Dunn of a style of hazard that was initially much simpler: the top line of the bunker was not serrated, but uniform in height and level, and the height of the bunker was not even close to seven or eight feet but rather about three feet.
In fact, Dunn’s original cop bunker at Ashley Park (shown below) bears little resemblance to his “miniature mountain range” at Bournemouth.
Figure 133 Tom Dunn's original cop bunker at the Ashley Park Golf Club. Postcard dated 1904.
Seen in the bottom lefthand corner of the photograph above, the 1890 Ashley Park cop bunker was not laid out in a straight line but rather in an irregular zig-zag pattern. A trench seems to have been dug on at least one side of the turf dyke. To judge by the height of the golfer and cyclist standing in it (relative to the golfers standing on the fairway), the trench was perhaps two feet deep.
At the Ashley Park Golf Club, Dunn’s newly invented cop bunkers served as cross bunkers on several holes:
There is a rather formidable looking artificial bunker between you and the first hole ….
Back you go again over the same bunker – looking out for the rabbit holes – and let your second shot have all you can put into it to clear another bunker and reach the second hole….
[On the 7th hole,] Another big bunker will await you should you by chance hit a straight ball through the narrow neck between two more woods. You won’t find it specially sandy if you get into that same bunker.
At the eight hole you will have to carry a bunker about one hundred and twenty yards from the tee.
(The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 February 1893, p.809)
Figure 134 A contemporary photograph of original cops at Hoylake that remain in play at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.
Dunn’s 1890 Ashley Park cop bunker more closely resembles a typical Hoylake cop (seen in the photograph to the left) than it resembles his 1894 miniature mountain range at Bournemouth, but they both served the same architectural function.
Note, however, that although it is clear that Dunn’s cop bunker was invented in 1890, the name “cop bunker” itself remained to be invented – or at least had not yet appeared in print.
As of 1891, however, newspaper reports about Dunn’s work on various layouts mention what we cab see were fairway-wide turf dykes and cop bunkers – although the hazards were not called such. In mid-February of 1891, for instance, when Dunn laid out an 18-hole course in Dinard, in northern France, the editor of Golf (London) reported that he built in the middle of the 8th fairway “a raised earthwork” (Golf, 20 February 1891, p. 363). This hazard was probably a turf dyke. Whether or not it had a sand-filled trench in front of it is unknown.
And in the summer of 1891, Dunn’s nine-hole layout at Sheringham in Norfolk seems to have included turf banks on the 5th hole: “The fifth hole is a very sporting one and is over the corner of a cornfield, with high banks and hedges to cross” (Golf, 18 September 1891, p. 2). I presume that the “high banks” were turf dykes. Also on this layout, the drive from the 7th tee required a carry over a mound of earth and something more: “The drive requires a very long shot to carry over a bunker and mound which run right across the course” (Golf, 18 September 1891, p. 2). Reference to the “bunker and mound” running right across the course seems to indicate a fairway-wide turf dyke with a sand trench in front of it – an instance of what would come to be regarded as a typical Dunn cop bunker.
Although Dunn must have been excited by his new invention, and although his cop bunker is sometimes the only thing that comes to mind when his name is mentioned these days, when it came to artificial cross bunkers, he did not confine himself to cop bunkers.
In the fall of 1891, for instance, Dunn used a wide variety of cross bunkers at Huddersfield, Yorkshire. There were “plantations” (which presumably referred to gorse planted to make “whin hurdles”), there were “plantations” with a trench in front of them, and there were ditches, stone fences, quarries, and dykes (presumably turf dykes):
In striking for the fourth hole, a long drive will carry one over a deep fosse [trench]. The second shot … compels the player to calculate whether to take his driver and go for it or play short, he having to run the gauntlet of two plantations with a fosse on one side….
Number six needs two full drives and an iron to get home, two stone dykes having to be crossed and a deep quarry to be avoided on the right of the hole.
Playing to the seventh the same number of strokes is required …; here, two dykes, a pond, and a plantation intercept the path of the player, although the latter two can be avoided by playing considerably to the right….
[On the eighth,] a deep fosse and two dykes must be crossed ….
Going to the ninth … a dyke and fosse have again to be crossed….
The tenth calls for … crossing a fosse….
[The eleventh] has a dyke and deep quarry ….
The twelfth [has] … a dyke and ditch running parallel to the hole.
​
The next hole introduces two more dykes to cross ….
(Golf, 4 December 1891, p. 182)
Fittingly enough, the first time that Dunn’s turf dykes with sand-filled trenches in front of them were called “cop bunkers” seems to have been in connection with his layout at his own Tooting Bec Golf Club.
This club was beset almost from the beginning by complaints from residents near Tooting Common who did not want golf played on the common land. Yielding to this pressure, the London County Council increasingly restricted the Club’s use of the common, leading the club late in 1891 to arrange for the use of private land adjacent to the common for a new 18-hole layout designed by Dunn, whose elaborate plan for the course was displayed in the clubhouse early in 1892.
Subsequently, newspapers were full of details provided by Dunn himself about his new layout:
Mr. Tom Dunn, the professional at Tooting Bec, believes that a splendid course can be laid.
There are two or three ponds in the ground, a small brook winds through it, and, therefore, plenty of hazards exist.
(Dundee Advertiser [Scotland], 7 January 1892, p. 5)
There are … a number of dry and wet ditches, several trees, and innumerable furze bushes, all of which are in positions calculated to treat in fair, if somewhat searching, fashion the skill of the golfer.
Mr. Tom Dunn calculates that 88 strokes to the round will be a very good score for a scratch player.
(Elgin Courant and Morayshire Advertiser, 9 February 1892, p.8)
Dunn has mapped out an eighteen-hole course with no crossing [of holes] ….
A little trenching and draining will be necessary at first on the low-lying portion of the course, but this will conduce to the benefit of the ground as well as the creation of good hazards of a sporting character.
(Streatham News, 5 March 1892, p. 5)
The “good hazards of a sporting character” – whose “creation” Dunn had in mind from his first survey of the site late in 1891 – were, of course, cop bunkers: “A fine park has been rented for [members’] exclusive use, with a course of three miles, and two lakelets and a rivulet for ‘hazards,’ while ‘cop bunkers’ are provided on an equally liberal scale” (London Evening Standard, 11 May 1892, p. 5).
​
I take all of the news items cited above to have been based on conversations with Tom Dunn, and so I regard the final citation – in which the phrase “cop bunker” seems to have been used in the newspapers for the first time – as the earliest evidence of Tom Dunn himself having used the phrase “cop bunker” to describe his distinctive style of artificial hazard.
But this newspaper report may have jumped the gun in its declaration that there were “cop bunkers” on a “liberal scale.” Dunn had apparently indicated on the plans displayed at the Club that he intended to create cop bunkers – perhaps he had drawn them on a map of the proposed layout – but there is no explicit mention of them in Horace Hutchinson’s description of the new course in the spring of 1893:
[At Tooting Bec,] a little golf reveals a great deal of variety.
First, there is a river, the Graveney, not wide, but too big to be jumped – by a golfer. This river has to be crossed seven times ….
Then there are trees, to the number of seventy times seven, at least.
There are also large zaribas, which are the work of artifice.
There are two ponds ….
All this is very pleasing, and, with a few hedges and ditches thrown in, gives lots of variety.
The putting greens, for an inland links, are extremely good.
(Horace Hutchinson, “Suburban Golf Links,” Saturday Review, 10 June 1893, p. 625)
Figure 135 Contemporary zareba in Mhaïreth, Mauritania. Photograph by Clemens Schmillen.
Were these “large zaribas” at Tooting Bec – which were the only hazards that Hutchinson described as the “work of artifice” – the cop bunkers that Dunn had planned?
“Zariba” is a word (derived from Arabic) originally used in various countries in north-eastern Africa to denote an improvised defensive stockade or fence, especially one made out of thorny bushes. Perhaps Hutchinson invokes the image of an African thorny fence to suggest the impression made upon him by “whin hurdles” – that is, Dunn’s characteristic banks of gorse.
Or perhaps Hutchinson makes a more general point: that Dunn’s cop bunkers remind him of a defensive military fortification. Others would soon call Dunn’s cop bunkers “ramparts.”
At the beginning of 1895, Golf (London) editor A.J. Robertson indicates that Dunn’s original cop bunker had become so popular that its use everywhere by everybody was becoming stylistically oppressive:
Great want of variety is … frequently shown in the construction of bunkers on “made” courses….
Too often we see nothing but a kind of shelter-trench, as if Tommy Atkins [a generic name for a British soldier, or “Tommy”] had been round with a pickaxe and shovel.
There is no poetry in such a bunker.
(Golf, 4 January 1895, p. 294)
Later that same year, Robertson advised the managers of the new course of the Royal Burgess Golfing Society of Edinburgh to make their turf bunkers more natural: “The greenkeeper ought to remember that something is due [that is, attention is owed] to aesthetic effect and that artificial bunkers ought to be made to simulate nature in some degree” (Golf, 11 October 1895, p. 92).
According to Robertson, course designers need to recognize that a curve is more natural than a straight line, a point that still needed to be made ten years later:
The straight line of the banked-up bunker can … be easily varied without imposing a penalty upon any player, and if those who are engaged in the formation of new courses would only endeavour to give effect to this very small reform in the interest of aesthetic beauty, something would at least be done to remove from inland golf courses the reproach so often levelled at them for being repellent in their ugliness.
(Field, 28 October 1905, p. 771)
Modernizing architects of the early twentieth century would make a mantra of Robertson’s 1895 admonition that “artificial bunkers ought to be made to simulate nature,” but they would also laugh derisively at what Robertson and Dunn regarded as a simulation of nature in 1895.
When still at Tooting Bec, Dunn shared his architectural thinking with the executive committee: “One of his ideas was … never to construct bunkers on flat park land having a straight ridge like the rampart of a fortification. His idea was to make the banked-up bunker loom afar off from the tee like the serrated peaks in miniature of his native [Scottish] mountains” (Field, 28 October 1905, p. 771).
And Dunn meant for the “peaks in miniature” to be done to scale:
When Dunn laid out the course at Tooting, … he rather amused the committee by stating that in one of the long banked-up bunkers stretching across the line to a prominent hole he intended to cut out of the turf a miniature model of the Bass Rock and Point Garry, both of which objects are prominent landmarks … at North Berwick.
The work was carried out by Dunn according to scale measurement, and when completed every player was charmed with the novelty of the idea and the picturesque appearance of the bunker which he had to carry from the tee.
(Field, 28 October 1905, p. 771)
Emulating the topiary who shaped hedges into figures of animals, and thereby “improved” upon nature, Dunn shaped his cop bunkers into scale models of dramatic landforms.
Dunn’s new style of cop bunker was widely regarded as more aesthetically pleasing than the conventional rampart style of cop bunker that it replaced. The curving lines of the vertical profile of his miniature mountain ranges seemed more natural than the straight lines of the original bunker. Robertson approvingly pointed other course designers to Dunn’s new style: “The bunkers with ramparts should be raised to a height of six or seven feet, constructed after the artistic model of Tom Dunn’s bunkers at Tooting, in wavy, peaked lines, so that a badly hit ball can rarely scramble over and lie well on the course beyond…. [A]rtificial bunkers ought to be made to simulate nature in some degree” (Golf, 11 October 1895, p. 92).
Modernizing golf architects of the early twentieth century would agree wholeheartedly that “artificial bunkers ought to be made to simulate nature in some degree,” but – oh, my! – how differently they would understand what it meant to simulate nature.
As we know, in January of 1894, Dunn went to Bournemouth to lay out an 18-hole course and plan “miniature mountain range” bunkers like those he had invented at Tooting Bec. During the summer, “eighteen bunkers were made, some of these being fashioned on the model of Scottish mountains” (Golf, 21 September 1894, p. 22). In other respects, however, these cop bunkers were constructed in the usual way: “Natural hazards are numerous, and where nature was not prolific enough in that particular, art has been employed and earth works, carefully turfed, have been raised and sand bunkers dug into the face of the hills to add to the difficulties and the quality of the play” (Glasgow Herald, 29 November 1894, p. 5).
​
Yet although the vertical profile of Dunn’s new cop bunkers demonstrated curving lines, there was the question of the straight lines of the sand-filled trenches dug horizontally across the fairway. Dunn’s original cop bunker zigged and zagged in straight lines, but many of his cop bunkers followed a straight line from one side of the fairway to the other, and they were oriented perfectly perpendicular to the line of play.
Horace Hutchinson proposed a solution to the unnaturalness of these straight lines in 1898:
The great mistake we in England have generally made with our artificial bunkers is in making them in dead straight lines across the course.
The effect is artistically horrid; it is as unlike as can be to anything that Nature gives us, and it has the tendency to reduce all golfers alike to an equal impotency [since no one can play forward].
But the manner of making them is in other points good – consisting in throwing up banks of soil which are then turfed over, leaving a tolerably sheer face towards the player, and with a ditch on the near side of six feet or so in width….
But in no case let the bank be planted straight, neither let the ditch be everywhere of the same breadth, nor the bank of the same height.
Nature, acting on fixed laws, does no make these straight lines.
Let the banks curve, crescent-wise and concave toward the player; or, again, let them run “S” shaped or serpentine.
Try to give them graceful curves, for this will be pleasing to the artist and golfer alike, giving advantage to the skilfulness of the latter.
Similarly, let them vary in height, for Nature’s bunkers show constant variety.
(Horace Hutchinson, “Artificial Bunkers,” Golf [New York], vol 2 no 2 [February 1898], pp. 11-12)
For Hutchinson, cop bunkers – provided they were done with a bit of artistic flare – must remain the staple of inland golf course design: he can think of no alternative.
And most members of turn-of-the-century European and North American golf clubs not only accepted cop bunkers as a proper golf course hazard but also liked them. They certainly preferred them to stone walls as cross bunkers. At the Buxton and High Peaks Club in 1901, for instance, members were eager to see cop bunkers replace their stone wall hazards:
A portion of [the Club’s budget surplus] might well be spent in abolishing the stone walls which make such indifferent hazards ….
Stone walls are never very satisfactory hazards. The poor gutta receives quite enough hard treatment without being driven against stone walls like those at Buxton.
​
Only a short time ago, Mr. [Harold] Hilton raised his voice against stone walls as hazards when writing of the Harlech course. On the latter course, one or two walls have been done away with at certain holes and the customary and familiar cop bunker substituted.
The change has the approval of everybody who has ever played at Harlech and a similar improvement at Buxton would be hailed with delight by everybody.
(Manchester Evening News, 23 October 1901, p. 6)
Dunn’s layout at Hanger Hill between the fall of 1900 and spring of 1901 was his last major work and it shows his absolute confidence that he had solved the problem that Hutchinson had described – the problem of designing cop bunkers that would “be pleasing to the artist and golfer alike.”
Mind you, a staple feature of his golf courses remained his straight-lined fairway-crossing cop bunker of modest proportions, as we can see in the photographs below that provide perspectives of several holes at Hanger Hill in the early 1900s.
Figure 136 Left: a view from the Hanger Hill clubhouse early 1900s. Three parallel fairways are visible, the two on the right each with a least one conventional cop bunker. Right: a golfer plays from a conventional cop bunker on the 14th hole at Hanger Hill early 1900s. The parallel fairway next to the 14th has a conventional cop bunker in front of its green. “Hanger Hill Golf Club London (1900 – WW2), Golf’s Missing Links (https://www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/south east/london/771-gl-hanger-hill-golf-club).
But, as we know, Dunn had heard the criticism of his straight lines and had heard the advice to simulate the curving lines of nature’s bunkers. In the mid-1890s, he had heeded these voices by creating “miniature mountain range” cop bunkers at Tooting Bec and Meyrick Park in Bournemouth and at the beginning of a new century he continued his “artistic” and “natural” expression by developing even more eccentric designs at Hanger Hill.
Below can be seen Dunn’s Hanger Hill cop bunker known as “C.I.V.” – an unusual hazard “being somewhat the shape of a C.I.V. hat and having the letters cut out in the turf” (Ealing and Acton Gazette [London, England],], 2 February 1901, p. 2).
Figure 137 Hanger Hill C.I.V. Bunker. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 23 March 1901, p. 128
Seen below, the “Apennines and Pyrenees” cop bunker was another of Dunn’s efforts to please golfer and artist alike.
Figure 138 The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 23 March 1901, p. 128.
Figure 139 The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 23 March 1901, p. 129. Tom Dunn on the 11th hole at Hanger Hill.
The golfer seen in the very centre of the photograph above playing across “Apennines and Pyrenees” is probably Dunn himself. He wears the same hat that Dunn sports in the photograph to the left, which shows him putting on the Hanger Hill 11th green.
These photographs of Dunn’s “miniature mountain range” cop bunkers at Hanger Hill allow us to appreciate the observation made in one of the first reviews of the new golf course:
“That great master of the art, Tom Dunn, laid out the links and did his work in quite his characteristic style” (The Illustrated and Dramatic News, 23 March 1901, p. 129).
​
Perhaps harder to appreciate is that some contemporary golf writers regarded Hanger Hill as one of the two great achievements of inland golf course architecture in 1901 the other being the Sunningdale course designed by Willie Park, Jr:
Figure 140 "The Peak of Tenerife" cop bunker, Hanger Hill Golf Club. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 23 March 1901, p. 129.
“The new golf courses at Sunningdale, near ascot, and Hanger Hill, Ealing, are nearing completion and should be equal to the best of those which lie inland” (Uttoxeter New Era and General Advertiser [England], 13 February 1901, p. 3).
​
Alas, Tom Dunn’s reputation as “great master of the art” did not long survive his death in 1902, and his wondrous miniature mountain ranges did not long survive the combined effects of weather, animals, and golfers.
The clefts and irregularities of the turf mountains could not be mowed by existing technology, so they were expensive to maintain and therefore easy to neglect, and a combination of rain and heavy frost could degrade elaborate mountain peaks. Grazing animals took their toll, too, as at Tooting Bec:
[At Tooting Bec,], time, weather, and unforeseen mischance were not long in obliterating the salient features of Dunn’s conception.
By a curious freak of fancy, the sheep and the lambs showed a partial fondness for scaling Dunn’s model Bass Rock and Point Garry.
The lambkins were particularly attracted to the spot in order to gambol among the clefts and irregularities, and the end was that both the Bass Rock and Point Garry had soon their irregularities – which were so attractive to the eye – smoothed away, and the features of the bunker which were a source of so much pride and solicitude to the greenkeeper and of interest to the members were submerged in the shapeless hump of the bank.
(Field, 28 October 1895, p. 771)
​
To prevent golfers from scaling sculpted turf banks, local grounds rule generally forbade playing of a shot from them. The ball was to be retrieved from the mound and placed in the sand.
When “Hard Hitter” complained that he was not allowed to play a shot from Dunn’s precious miniature mountain ranges at Bournemouth, Golf (London) editor Robertson read the riot act:
“Hard Hitter” has only to serve on a Green Committee for a short time to find out why it is necessary to prevent cricket brethren like himself from playing off the banks.
It is the misfortune – nay, the crime – of all the tribe of hard hitters at golf to carry huge divots away with their strokes, generally leaving them where they fall; and if indiscriminate hitters were allowed to mount the banks of bunkers and to play the ball where it lay, those bunkers, built at some cost, would soon be as completely razed to the ground as if they had been bombarded by an ironclad [battleship].
It is thus a salutary and chastening rule to cause hard hitters to lift their ball off the bank and drop it in the sand, where, doubtless, it is a less pleasing pastime to get it out.
(Golf [London], 3 January 1896, pp. 358-59)
When Tom Dunn’s young associate Harry Rawlins joined Willie Davis at Newport in May of 1895, he may have brought with him the idea that golfers should be encouraged – and perhaps forced – to left balls from the banks of cop bunkers and drop them in the sand, for we learn the following in an account of a semifinal match in the first U.S. Amateur Golf Championship which was held at Newport in the fall of 1895:
In playing for the third hole, [Charles E.] Sands drove well and cleared the cop bunker.
[F.J.] Amory was not so lucky, his ball lodging in the face of the bank.
Under the rules of the Newport Club, he was allowed to move the ball a club’s length out into the sandy bunker ….
(Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4)
Hoylake cop bunkers needed no such special protection. Indeed, being much more durable, they have survived more than 125 years of golfers playing from them – even “heavy hitters.”
Bernard Darwin celebrated such a shot played by John Ball. Jr:
Along the left-hand side of [the 3rd or “Long Hole”] runs a sandy ditch beneath a turf wall with absolutely precipitous sides and woe betide the man whose ball lies tucked up hard under the face of that wall; he will be lucky if he can get it out backwards, forwards, or at all.
I saw Mr. John Ball extricate himself from this predicament by an extraordinary stroke, or so it seemed to me.
​
He stood on top of the wall, far out of reach of the ball, then leaped down into the ditch, hitting as he jumped, and out came the ball most gallantly; it takes something more than local knowledge to play such a shot as this.
(Bernard Darwin, The Golf Courses of the British Isles [London: Duckworth & Co, 1910], pp. 115-16)
J.H. Taylor played a similar shot from this cop bunker on the way to his 5th Open Championship:
I had left my tee shot up a little too much into the wind going to the third hole, with the result that it got into the narrow Cop bunker that runs parallel to the course.
The ball was tucked up under the bank and I had to stand some three feet above my ball. There was a great danger of missing it altogether, as it required very accurate hitting.
Deciding to take the risk, I dug my toes into the bank and hurled myself at the ball. I just got the blade of my mashie at it, nearly tumbling over in the endeavour, but the ball went some fifty yards.
Mark the result. I reached the green with my third and holed a four-yard putt.
I consider this stroke set me well on my way to winning my fifth championship.
(J.H. Taylor, cited in Horace Hutchinson and Bernard Darwin, “On the Green,” Country Life, 17 January 1914, p. 103)
Just think of all the heroic shots from the clefts and irregularities of Dunn’s miniature mountain ranges that were prevented by local rules!
In the end, weather, animals, and heavy hitting golfers told less against Dunn’s cop bunkers than the change in architectural thinking that banished them permanently from the golfing landscape and made of Tom Dunn – once the “master of his art” – an Ozymandias whose time had passed:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)
Done with Dunn: Execrated Cops
In 1902, when interviewed shortly before he died of tuberculosis, Dunn observed that he had laid out 137 golf courses in Scotland, England, France, and Spain, and he noted that his prolific period of creativity while at Tooting Bec had led well known golf historian John Kerr to refer to this period as “The Dunn Era”:
No man – not even Old Tom Morris – has laid out so many golf-greens as Tom Dunn.
There is scarcely a county in England that he has not visited for this purpose.
For some time there was such a demand for his services that some golfers spoke of it as “The Dunn Era.”
(John Kerr, The Golf Book of East Lothian [Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1896], p. 334)
In 1914, however, Henry Leach breathed a sigh of relief that this era was over: “The day for very plain and purely and obviously artificial construction of inland golf courses is gone, the original inland system in all its stupidity and its surrender to difficulties has become archaic” (Henry Leach, The Happy Golfer [London: Macmillan and Co., 1914], p. 195).
As we know, by the mid-1890s, Dunn’s earliest work, and the work of his many imitators, had been criticized as inartistic, if not ugly. In response, Dunn designed his cop bunkers in ever more ingenious – and increasingly eccentric – ways. But a new generation of architects saw even his most creative cross bunkering as the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.
According to Tom Simpson, nineteenth-century designers such as Dunn can hardly be called architects:
In the days when famous links such as St. Andrews, Prestwick, Hoylake, Rye, and Royal St. George’s … came into being, the golf architect’s was not the specialised profession that it is today. In fact, it may safely be said that it did not exist.
Such courses were not designed by any one man – they simply “happened.”
Later, until the year 1900 or thereabouts, anyone who wanted to build a golf course simply summoned the nearest professional and said, “Tell me where to put the greens and the tees” – a policy that covered the country with a network of thoroughly bad, uninspired, ragged courses.
The pioneers of the profession …. displaced what may be called the “rectangular rampart” school of thought, who had no other idea of an artificial hazard than a large cross bunker all the way across the fairway.
​
(Dundee Evening Telegraph [Scotland], 28 June 1934, p. 2)
Elsewhere, Simpson said of Dunn and his imitators:
They failed to reproduce any of the features of the [links] courses on which they were bred and born, or to realize the principles on which they had been made….
The bunkers that were constructed on the fairways may be described as rectangular ramparts of a peculiarly obnoxious type, stretching at regular intervals across the course and having no architectural merit whatever.
(cited in Thomas MacWood, “Arts and Crafts Golf, Part I,” Golf Club Atlas, 2009, https://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/arts-and-crafts-golf-pg-i/)
In 1905, Garden Smith (who had in July 1898 replaced A.J. Robertson as the editor of Golf, thereafter known as Golf Illustrated) took the occasion of reviewing the 1904 construction of the new Queen’s Park golf course in Bournemouth to trash Dunn’s 1894 Bournemouth course:
The course can be made quite first-class (for inland) by guarding the second, third, fifth, sixth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and seventeenth greens with sand pits; not those detestable “Cockney bunkers” of which we are all so very sick, for these would entirely alter the character and appearance of the course, which at present has not a single artificial hazard.
(Golf Illustrated, cited in Bournemouth Graphic, 12 January 1905, p. 28)
Dunn – implicitly deemed “Cockney” by virtue of his having single-handedly laid out most of the golf courses in the London area during the 1890s – had made Smith sick, yet less than seven years before, Smith had fully endorsed such bunkering for inland courses:
For an inland course, the only good kind of artificial hazard is made by digging a trench some six feet broad and about a foot deep, at the required place, and at a suitable angle to the line of the hole.
The contents of the trench are built up, cop-wise, to the height of about three feet on its far side, and the embankment is turfed over.
(Garden Smith, The World of Golf [London: A.D. Innes & Co, 1898], p. 101)
How soon they forget!
In 1906, Ernest Lehmann was equally vociferous in decrying Dunn’s cop bunker as an antiquated architectural monstrosity:
One of the minor evils of golf from which the new [Haskell] ball is delivering us is that abomination of desolation – the cross-trench bunker.
To what misguided inspiration this form of bunker owes its existence I cannot say, nor do I suppose any historian of the game has stopped to inquire. There is nothing which approaches to a semblance of it on natural courses. On them you may find a wide bunker stretching across the line of flight, but I have never seen such a bunker with the added horror of a steep bank at the further side rising three or four feet from the level of the course….
When the great spread of golf occurred [in the late 1880s and early 1890s], every sort and kind of area of ground was requisitioned for the supply of golf courses. The early Southern [England] golfer demanded, or was supplied with, two essentials on his course – a hazard to drive over from the tee, and another to approach over to the green.
I am unable to say whether the demand created the supply of the article, or whether the supply, which was invariable and abundant, formed the taste and custom in this particular error. But however that may have been, the golfer coming to a new course in those days might well have imagined that he was going to negotiate not a golf links, but a steeplechase course which had been devoted to the use of golfers on days when there was no racing going on.
Horrid trenches, guarded on the further sides by steep banks, surmounted by flags, confronted him at every hole ….
Figure 141 In 1904, a cop bunker marked by a flag at the Choppequonsett Golf Club (Providence, Rhode Island), The Golfer, vol 14 no 1 (January 1904), p. 27.
Poor Tom Dunn was responsible for a goodly heap of these horrible hazards, which, for the most part, have been removed with much labour and expense by his wiser successors and their ruling authorities.
​
Even on some great courses, such as Muirfield and Hoylake, there are a few survivals of this ancient and erroneous form of hazard-worship…. Away, therefore, with all cross trench bunkers.
(The Bystander, 22 August 1906, p. 400)
When the coming architect William Herbert Fowler (1856-1941), who had designed Walton Heath between 1902 and 1904, was called to recommend improvements to the Sheffield and District Golf Club course that had been well provided with cop bunkers by Tom Dunn in 1891, he was more restrained in his statement about cop bunkers: “I do not like the cop type of hazard” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1907, p. 11).
In a lecture he delivered in 1913, Alastair Mackenzie illustrated the danger of following prevailing fashions in golf course architecture by reference to the old “absurd cop bunkers extending in a dead straight line from the rough on one side to the rough on the other side; these are now, fortunately, as extinct as the dodo” (Alastair Mackenzie, “Common Fallacies of Golf course Construction and Greenkeeping,” a lecture delivered to the Northern Section of the Golf Greenkeepers’ Association,” cited in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 6 June 1914, p. 10).
In the United States, Walter Travis took up the mantle of Dunn basher. In 1901, he indicated in the first edition of Practical Golf that he disapproved of the cop-bunker:
No bunkers on a first-class course should …. be made with perpendicular and precipitous faces so as to make it almost impossible to get out in one stroke.
Instead of the array of steep cops with narrow ditches which disfigure so many courses, aim rather to make the cops more semicircular in shape.
(Practical Golf, [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1901], 157).
In the book’s second edition in 1902, he expressed a loathing of cop-bunkers:
On none of the sea-side links has Nature made it necessary to arrange the hazards of an artificial character on the same general lines as those in this country, and which, from Maine to Oregon, may be said to all bear the same family resemblance as to suggest a common origin.
This is due partly to … an imperfect appreciation of the real needs of hazards and their refinements and artistic application in other than the regular stereotyped patterns which tend largely to disfigure so many of our courses….
Usually they are represented by huge embankments thrown up transversely the full width of the course, resembling rifle-pits, of uniform height throughout – hideous excrescences on the fair face of Nature.
​
There is a line of these fortifications confronting you from nearly every tee, ranging in distance from 80 to 130 yards, and another line for the second shot, and so on, with little or no diversification throughout the round.
(Walter J. Travis, Practical Golf (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1902), 2nd ed., pp. 184 85)
Travis implicitly refers to the work of the Dunns, and he points to them by a play on words in his reference to the existence of earthwork hazards coast to coast that so much “bear the same family resemblance as to suggest a common origin”: the common origin, of course, was the Dunn family! He had used the same play on words in the 1901 first edition: “Endeavor to construct the hazards as to furnish some diversity, rather than have them all of the same family type” (157).
The following is a list of the derogatory words and phrases used by writers that I quote throughout this chapter to describe cop bunkers: stupid, evil, an abomination, a desolation, misguided, an error, horrid, absurd, fortunately extinct, detestable, they make me sick, obnoxious, a failure, dull, creating no excitement, showing no strategy, nefarious, simple minded, unimaginative, uninteresting, hideous excrescences, showing no diversification, disfigurements, laughable.
So many words, and none of them nice.
Inevitably, of course, the adjectives applied to Dunn’s hazard designs become associated with the designer himself. “Poor Tom Dunn,” indeed!
Promoting one’s architectural philosophy as a cure for a hideously disfiguring sickness spread by carriers of the contagion such as “Typhoid Dunn” was certainly a good marketing strategy, and perhaps the rhetorical excess that was used to diminish – and even vilify – Dunn and his work served this purpose.
And one might detect in this rhetorical excess what the Freudian analyst would characterize as an Oedipal expression of the psychological energy necessary to displace an oppressive father figure. A hint of this dynamic appears in Alastair Mackenzie’s account of how his criticism of Dunn’s style of bunker initially fell on deaf ears:
I began to take a keen interest in the construction of golf courses several years ago. I could never understand why they were constructed with the ugly looking banks so prevalent in those days, but which are now, I am thankful to say, so out of date that one rarely sees them.
​
I expressed my view pretty strongly with regard to the dullness and uninteresting nature of the hazards and greens on all inland links, but in those days it had as much effect as one crying in the wilderness – in fact, I was looked upon rather as a crank on the subject, and when my name was suggested as captain of the club to which I belonged, it was argued in committee that I held such weird views in regard to the game that they decided they would not have me at any price.
(Alastair Mackenzie, “Common Fallacies of Golf course Construction and Greenkeeping,” a lecture delivered to the Northern Section of the Golf Greenkeepers’ Association,” cited in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 6 June 1914, p. 10)
With his allusion to the New Testament (“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord” [John 1:23), Mackenzie figures himself as John the Baptist, who claimed to prepare the way for the Son of God.
As Mackenzie saw things, the world of inland golf needed a redeemer.
From another point of view, rhetorical excess directed against Dunn’s golf hazards may also have emerged from the operation of class prejudice within British culture, for the architectural vanguard that labelled Dunn an architectural inferior was composed of members of the professions (for example, banker Fowler, doctor Mackenzie, lawyers Colt and Simpson): all of them being amateur golfers who were members of a middle class socialized to regard working class culture as inferior. Denigration of the architectural pretensions of a working-class golf professional perhaps served the effort to ennoble golf course architecture and have it recognized as a proper discipline and respectable profession.
Mackenzie explicitly identified golf professionals as the creators of these bad golf courses:
In the Victorian era, … almost all new golf courses were planned by professionals, and were, incidentally, amazingly bad.
They were built with mathematical precision, a cop bunker extending from the rough on one side to the rough on the other, and a similar cop placed on the second shot.
There was entire absence of strategy, interest, and excitement, except where some natural irremovable object intervened to prevent the designer from carrying out his nefarious plans.
(cited in Thomas MacWood, “Arts and Crafts Golf, Part I,” Golf Club Atlas, 2009, https://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/arts-and-crafts-golf-pg-i/)
Mackenzie’s observation that golf courses planned by professionals “were, incidentally, amazingly bad” seems to have been ironic (emphasis added). Was the absence of strategy required to play the golf course not a function of the absence of strategy deployed by the golf professional to make it?
Whereas Mackenzie implicitly impugned the golf professional’s quality of mind, Bernard Darwin did so explicitly: “The laying out of courses used once to be a rather rule-of-thumb business done by rather simple-minded and unimaginative people who did not go far beyond … holes formed on the model of a steeplechase course” (cited in Thomas MacWood, “Arts and Crafts Golf, Part I,” Golf Club Atlas, 2009, https://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/arts-and-crafts-golf pg-i/).
But in old age, Darwin recognized that the limitations of golf ball technology may have affected the golf professional’s understanding of what thrilled golfers in the 1890s:
Today we talk rather scornfully of our predecessors who … laid out their bunkers as if making a steeplechase course.
Doubtless they were not very subtle, but there is this to be said for them: that with the gutty ball, the danger of topping into the hill-face was much greater than with the rubber-core and so the thrill of getting over it so much the greater, too.
(Bernard Darwin, “On the Top: A Golf Commentary,” Country Life, 7 July 1950, p. 55).
In 1912, Horace Hutchinson anticipated by forty years Darwin’s recognition that there was a more charitable and sympathetic way of talking about Dunn and his cop bunkers:
The golf course according to Tom Dunn [was] distinguished by the cross-bunkers – long straight excavations with a bank, formed of the excavated soil, thrown up on the side further from the player.
They appear to us now excellent for a steeplechase course ….
As arenas for the royal and ancient game of golf, they strike us as hideous, antiquated and laughable. Yet at their first making we had none of this suspicion of them. We piously believed them to be all right.
There was the first fence, thrown up to be carried off the tee, and in the case of a majority of the holes there would be a second of precisely the same kind, embanked to make a hazard you must carry with your second shot – there was no compromise, the horrid thing stretched right across the course, and you had to be over, short, or in. There was no way round and no way between.
In the case of a majority of the holes, this second carry would bring you to the green, but if the hole were an exceptionally long one, a three-shot hole …, then after a second bank had been surmounted, there appeared yet a third, again of precisely the same character….
​
It seemed as if the constructor, having once hit upon the not really very subtle device of this straight and continuous trench and bank, was so pleased with it that he regarded it as the ultimate ideal and could think of nothing better than to repeat it as often as occasion offered….
It is really rather hard on poor Tom Dunn … that his name should be thus associated with a character of hazard which we all now condemn and execrate.
It ought not really to be brought up against him as an offence that he was no wiser than his generation.
We knew no better then; inland courses were in the nature of new things, and so, too, were artificial bunkers.
We have been learning ever since, and it is only regretted that Tom Dunn, who died much before his natural term of life, is not here still to learn with us.
(Westminster Gazette, 31 May 1912)
With a generosity of spirit and a genuine humility that are becoming, Hutchinson put things in proper perspective.
Cop-wise: What's in a Name
Emerging first in 1892, the increasingly widespread reference to Dunn’s fairway wide turf dykes with sand trenches in front of them as “cop bunkers” implies, of course, that people recognized that Dunn’s bunkers were affiliated to the Hoylake cop.
As mentioned above, one of the first – if not the first – published uses of the phrase “cop bunker” emerged in May of 1892 in a newspaper discussion of Dunn’s second layout for the Tooting Bec Golf Club. I assume that the newspaper reporter heard the phrase from Dunn himself or from Tooting Bec members who were describing the layout in question.
Tom Dunn had a long acquaintance with the distinctive cops of the Hoylake course, having first played golf on the brand new 18-hole layout in April of 1872, competing in a professional tournament involving the top golf professionals of the day: reigning Open Champion young Tom Morris, Old Tom Mooris, Davie Strath, and so on. And he continued to play golf at Hoylake over the years as the course was changed, with new holes occasionally added, and with new artificial bunkers added here and there. For instance, he returned to play Young Tom, Davie Strath, and other professionals in October of 1873, just months after the bunker on the 1st hole had been lengthened and enlarged and an artificial bunker had been built on the 7th. And he was back to compete in a large professional tournament in the spring of 1885.
Over the years, there can be no doubt that Dunn witnessed the development of new cop bunkers at Hoylake and experienced the new challenges that they posed to golfers. It would have been natural for him to refer to his artificial turf banks as cops.
No doubt, word spread of Dunn’s reference to his turf dykes with sand tranches fronting them as cop bunkers. Yet it may also be the case that some golfers independently recognized that his turf dykes were analogous to those at Hoylake.
Consider the controversy about Dunn’s Bournemouth course (laid out and constructed in 1894) during which a golfer wrote to a local newspaper to compare Dunn’s cop bunkers unfavourably to those at Hoylake.
Under Dunn’s supervision during the summer of 1894, “eighteen bunkers were made, some of these being fashioned on the model of Scottish mountains” (Bournemouth Guardian, 6 October 1894, p. 6). Over the next eighteen months, criticism of his bunkers was waged through letters published in local newspapers and through formal presentations to the “Corporation of Bournemouth,” which maintained the course:
The Bournemouth golfers are crying out about the shortness of their links.
Some of them complain … that the bunkers are too narrow, that they are too near the tee, that they lack sand … and so on.
The golfer who has signalised himself most in the controversy is the one who chooses the nom de guerre of “Hard Hitter” ….
This gentleman wants a green committee appointed; he objects to the pattern of the bunkers and cannot understand why … golfers are not allowed to play off the banks of built bunkers, finally eulogising the cop bunkers of Hoylake as an improvement upon the form selected by Tom Dunn.
(Golf, 1896, p. 358)
Presumably because Tom Dunn was said to have laid out nearly all the courses around London where his distinctive cop bunkers were found, one of the letter writers apparently disparaged his cop bunkers as “cockney hazards.”
Summarizing this controversy, Golf editor Robertson suggested that the choice between Dunn’s bunkers and those at Hoylake was a matter of individual preference, and, observing that “some men prefer beer to wine,” he averred that “there is no crime in opting for your choice” and proceeded to declare his own choice:
As to the much decried “cockney hazards” of miniature mountain ranges erected at Bournemouth, and many other greens [that is, golf courses], and the plain, unadorned wall-like cop, it is purely a question of individual taste as to which form coincides best with the general features of the landscape and is least offensive to the eye….
But in preferring his cop bunker to the artistic mountain range, we believe that “Hard Hitter” is the spokesman of the minority of players who have tried with the labouring niblick both classes of hazard.
(Golf 1896 p. 358)
Implicitly, Robertson regards the “plain, unadorned, wall-like” Hoylake cop as suited to the landscape in which it is found, but most golfers who have “tried … both classes of hazard” find “least offensive to the eye” Dunn’s “artistic mountain range.”
Although Ernest Lehmann professed to have no idea in 1906 where the “cross-trench bunker” had originated, Percy B. Burn, the golf writer for the Manchester Courier, knew in 1912 precisely where it had come from. Noting how recent architectural practice in Britain had yielded “some thousands of little hazards made round greens,” hazards that “now that we have got used to them … seem quite reasonable tortures,” Burn observed:
It is rather queer how the fashions change.
Years ago the cross bunker was all the rage and the Hoylake cop was found on nearly every course.
Then, in some places, the cross hazard was overdone, and some of them seemed quite unfair…. extremely difficult of egress …. It was seldom possible to play forward, and the ignominious plan of playing back had to be adopted.
(Manchester Courier, 26 November 1912, p. 9).
Apparently beginning with Dunn’s own reference (by at least 1892) to his artificial hazards as “cop bunkers,” golfers who knew of the Hoylake cops increasingly recognized the affiliation of Dunn’s cops to their Hoylake precursor. Even “Hard Hitter” simply pretended not to recognize that Dunn had used Hoylake cops as the inspiration for his “miniature mountain ranges” so that he could recommend that Dunn consult the Hoylake model to see what a proper cop bunker should look like.
Burn, of course, disagrees with Robertson’s praise of Dunn’s “artistic mountain ranges.” Noting that “the Hoylake cop was found on nearly every course” after it became “all the rage,” he explains why it dropped out of fashion: “Then, in some places, the cross hazard was ‘overdone.’” He means that it was “overdone” not in the sense of having become too common but rather in the sense of having become exaggerated: it became “quite unfair” and “extremely difficult of egress.” In other words, Dunn’s cop bunker had lost the architectural legitimacy of its Hoylake model.
Annus Mirabilis: Park's 1896 Cop-Out
In 1912, five-time Open Champion and golf architect J.H. Taylor reflected on the architectural dominance of cross bunkers in general – and the cop bunker in particular – well into the early twentieth century and explained how in the early 1900s the idea arose of replacing them with bunkers along the sides of greens and fairways:
[On seaside courses,] the way to the hole was where the bunkers were not, and these strategic methods made the player of acute perception and rendered him the Napoleon and master of most intricate holes….
But when, in its joyous march, [golf] captivated the hearts of those people who dwell beyond the sound of the booming of the surf on an open beach …, it was found necessary to make what Nature had provided on seaside courses, a bunker that would prove a trap for the unwary and a source of delight to those players whose skill helped them to circumvent the alluring charms of this apparently innocent contour of the country.
The type of bunker mostly in favour on the new inland courses proved to be a bank of soil of varying height, but generally between 4 and 5 feet, stretching right across the line of play, the front of which – that is, the side nearest the player – being hollowed out for several yards and filled in with sand.
This bunker popularized by Tom Dunn, the pioneer of golf architects and admittedly one of the best men at his profession in this kingdom, was adopted on practically all the hundreds of courses that sprang up, as it were, during the night. It was found that such a bunker admitted of no sneaking around the corner; over the player had to go somehow!
Two bunkers at a hole were thought sufficient when golf started to creep about the country, one as a carry from the tee, and another guarding the whole front of the green. At long holes, a third was added that had to be carried with the second shot.
These cross bunkers, as they were called, were certainly not natural looking, appearing as much like walls if anything, but they were very effective.
After a time it was thought that this style of bunker did not exactly meet the requirements of the general body of players.
A band of red-tied revolutionaries then took charge of the game, and, teaching a new doctrine that it was not fair that the green should be entirely guarded with a long bunker, [and that] neither was it quite the thing for a man to have a hazard that would probably catch his half-topped second shot, prevailed upon a lot of existing [clubs] and several clubs that were just forming to forgo this style and adopt the method of punishment they had created.
This system of bunkering was to place traps on the sides of the course only.
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(J.H. Taylor, “The Evolution of the Bunker,” in in Joshua Taylor, The Art of Golf [London: T. Werner Laurie, 1913])
Taylor was not impressed by the way cop bunkers were replaced with bunkers at the sides of fairways. In fact, he argued for the continuing usefulness of cross bunkers:
[“Traps on the sides of courses only”] did away with anything that lay in a straight line between tee and hole, and in consequence, there was nothing to prevent a series of topped shots from reaching the green in but one over the orthodox number.
Unless [the drive] was sliced or pulled just the right amount, the ball passed the bunker on one side or the other and the lucky player was but little worse off than his opponent who had kept down the middle. True, he might be lying in the rough, but he had no [cross] bunker to carry with his second and could therefore afford to play up with the oft materialised hope that he could put his third near the hole.
This was obviously unfair, but at the time there was no thought of reverting to the cross hazard that would have rendered it impossible for this player to have comfortably reached the green in three.
(J.H. Taylor, “The Evolution of the Bunker,” in in Joshua Taylor, The Art of Golf [London: T. Werner Laurie, 1913])
And Taylor was equally disappointed at the replacement of a cross-bunker stretched across the front of the green by bunkering at the sides and back of the green: “They were placed three parts around the green, but seldom in front, so the half-topped approach still laughed silently to itself as it trundled its way bumping on towards the hole” (J.H. Taylor, “The Evolution of the Bunker,” in in Joshua Taylor, The Art of Golf [London: T. Werner Laurie, 1913]).
One of the earliest of Taylor’s “red-tied revolutionaries” was W. Herbert Fowler, who had been invited as early as 1899 by his brother-in-law Sir Cosmo Bonsor to consider designing a golf course on the latter’s heathland in Surrey. Opened five years later, Fowler’s 18-hole Walton Heath golf course used no cop bunkers and few cross bunkers, and it enacted instead the side bunkering strategy that Taylor would later criticize. Field’s review of the new course on its opening in May of 1904 (at which Harry Vardon, James Braid, and J.H. Taylor played an exhibition match) is notable both for its identification of the revolutionary nature of the bunkering strategy and for its anticipation of Taylor’s concerns:
The novel feature of the course which will strike most golfers is the character of the bunkers.
Few of the holes have a bunker to be carried from the tee; and in this respect a complete departure appears to have been made in the laying out of a new course.
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The Walton Heath bunkers are mainly at the side of the course so as to catch the pulled and sliced ball. They are just about the distance from the tee that an ordinary well struck ball will reach with a pull or a slice, and therefore the main thing for the player to think of is to be straight.
A badly topped ball will get in rough ground [i.e. the rough] lying in front of the tee, and there will be punishment through loss of distance.
But the defect which strikes the critic, in the absence of a bunker to be carried in front by the tee shot, is that a very indifferent player, if only he keeps straight, will just as easily win the hole as a good player who, owing to the breeze or a slight pull or slice, reaches one of the side bunkers.
At the side of the putting greens also, the bunkers are placed right and left, not in front. (Field, 21 May 1904, p. 852)
Remarkably, both Fowler’s early 1900s reaction against the hegemony of cop bunkers and his alternative way of bunkering a golf course along the sides were advocated in 1896: first, explicitly, in Willie Park’s The Game of Golf (published in April of 1896); second, implicitly, in Willie Davis’s design of nine new holes at the Newport Golf Club (sometime between the early fall of 1896 and January of 1897).
Park’s reaction against cop bunkers perhaps grew out of his recognition that as the popularity of golf exploded in Europe and North America in the 1890s, a golf course needed to welcome the myriad newcomers to the game, not punish them for being beginners who could not get the ball into the air so that it would carry over the three- to eight-foot wall presented by cop bunkers:
It is to be kept in view … that the links are to be laid out for the use of a certain class of golfers.
If all are beginners, it is a mistake to make the course too difficult at first, as it will diminish their pleasure and possibly disgust them with the green [i.e. disgust them with the golf course] ….
(The Game of Golf, p. 201)
Pragmatic recognition that a golf course should be fair to beginners was an aspect of Park’s general conviction that a golf course should be fair to golfers of all levels of ability. He argued, for instance, that the architect should not “trap” a player with invisible hazards: “all hazards should be visible to the golfer when he stands at his ball playing his stroke”; he also argued that no hazard should be inescapable: “there should not be any hazard out of which the ball cannot be extricated at the loss one stroke”; and he argued that rectangular bunkers (such as the sand trenches excavated in front of cop-bunkers, which presented sharp corners from which balls tucked into them could not be played out, should be redesigned: “It should not be possible for a ball to lie in such a position in a bunker that a stroke at it cannot be made so as to play the ball out in one direction or another, and the corners should not therefore be sharp and angular but rather rounded off” (The Game of Golf, p. 203).
Although in reconceiving the design, function and placement of hazards, Park’s primary intention seems to have been to make the golf course fair, a number of his practices also had positive aesthetic consequences. For instance, his rounding of the edges of the trench fronting turf dykes to prevent balls from being trapped in the unplayable nooks of 90-dgree angles produced a look consonant with nature’s curves. As Lehman would note of the cop bunker in 1906: “There is nothing which approaches to a semblance of it on natural courses” (The Bystander, 22 August 1906, p. 400). And so, even if not intended as such, Park’s introduction of a curving line into bunker construction was an advance toward a more natural aesthetic in golf course architecture.
Another architectural strategy recommended in The Game of Golf – that there should be variation in the nature and placement of hazards – also had an important aesthetic effect:
The placing of hazards is a matter of great difficulty, and their positions should be such that a golfer who is playing a good game should never visit them.
The positions should be varied.
There should, for example, be at certain holes hazards that must be carried … from the tee; these should be placed at such distances from the teeing grounds that while a well hit shot will carry them, a topped or half-topped stroke will get in.
At other holes, the hazards should be placed so as to punish badly played second strokes …
[A]t others again, the hazards should guard the putting-greens in front, and there may also be placed some hazards behind the greens.
(The Game of Golf, p 204, emphasis added)
Such variations in the placement of hazards varied the landscape typical of Dunn’s courses.
Park defies the prescription of penal design theory that each and every bad shot deserves its own special punishment, for some of his holes would require carries for first shots, but not second shots, and some of his holes would require carries for second shots, but not first shots. Furthermore, some holes would have no cross bunkers at all. On a course such as Park outlines in The Game of Golf, one would not be able to determine the proper score for a hole by counting the number of its cross bunkers (and adding two strokes for putts).
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Park’s advice regarding such variation in the placing of hazards may have been intended to add variety to a golfer’s playing experience, but his ideas nonetheless also entailed a departure from the oppressively geometrical and mechanical repetition that occurred when every hole on every golf course punished every bad shot in the same way. For Par, architectural variety is the spice of life on a golf course, and since variety is also a feature of nature, his variation in the nature and placement of hazards contributed to a more natural aesthetic.
Park was not against the use of cop bunkers per se, but he clearly did not approve of the increasingly high and exaggerated forms of turf bank that were being seen by the mid-1890s:
When bunkers are made, it is very usual to form the soil taken up into a cop in front, or behind, and sometimes in the middle.
When such a thing is done, the cop should not be made high, but rather broad, and it should not have steep sides.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 203-204).
So long as the cop is low and broad, it can be placed anywhere in relation to the sand trench associated with it: a low and broad turf bank can be placed on the hole-side of the bunker, on the tee-side of the bunker, or in the centre of the bunker. Park describes the kinds of bunker that can now be found on golf courses all over the world (as seen in the photographs below).
Figure 142 Left to right, contemporary examples of Park’s idea of forming soil from a bunker into a broad (but not high and steep-sided) cop or turf bank in the middle of, in front of, or behind the bunker (respectively).
In his reconceiving of the design and placement of hazards, Park criticized the increasingly prevalent practice of placing a cross bunker in front of every green:
There is a great cry nowadays that every hole should have a hazard in front requiring to be lofted over, but I think it is possible to carry a system of this kind too far.
It ties players down to pitching all their approaches instead of making them exercise their judgement as to whether the ball should be lofted or run up.
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No golfer will deny that there should be hazards in front of some holes, but I think that at others there should be a clear road, with hazards judiciously placed on either side to punish wild shots.
To loft a ball with an iron is comparatively easy to any player except an absolute novice, but it is not easy to keep to the proper course.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 204-205)
The “great cry nowadays” for a cross bunker before each green arose, of course, from subscribers to Dunn’s penal philosophy – illustrated in 1895 by Dunn’s well-received course in Bournemouth, as described by Golf editor Robertson: “It is essentially a green [i.e. a golf course] … on which any player is bound to improve his iron play, for the putting-greens are so placed, and the hazards guarding them so arranged, that sure and accurate lofting is the only means whereby a creditable score may be attained” (Golf [London], 7 December 1894, p. 226).
The golfer playing Dunn’s 1895 Bournemouth course was given no choice about how to approach a green: loft well or lose strokes in a bunker. And so it was on many of Dunn’s courses. In this context, it is interesting to note that in the fall of 1895, Park played Dunn’s Tooting Bec course with the editor of Golf editor Robertson: “Willie Park, jun., fresh from his American tour, had two rounds of the Tooting course at Furzedown on Friday, partnered with Mr. A.J. Robertson” (Golf [London], 1 November 1895, p. 164). It was no doubt at least in part in reaction to Dunn’s penchant for requiring lofting shots to access virtually all his putting greens that Park advocated in 1896 a design strategy that would ask golfers to make choices about their approach play strategies.
Park also transferred to fairway design his insight about the usefulness of green-side hazards as a strategy by which to discipline approach shots. Regarding the design and placement of fairway hazards, he observed: “Erratic play should always meet with punishment, and I would counsel hazards being laid down on each side, not of the putting-greens alone, but also of the line to the hole, to catch pulled or sliced balls” (The Game of Golf, pp. 204-205).
As we know, Fowler took up these ideas at Walton Heath.
Copping Out at Sunningdale and Huntercombe
Beginning in 1899, Park laid out his 18-hole design at Sunningdale according to the ideas he had advanced in 1896, and in 1901, he did the same on the 18-hole course he laid out near Henley-on-Thames after acquiring an interest in the farmland of Huntercombe Manor the year before.
On some holes (as required on every hole of a Dunn course), drives had to carry obstacles. At Sunningdale, the drive on certain holes was expected to carry rough immediately in front of the tee: “The tee for the fifth is on high table land and woe betide the man who tops or pulls, for he will at once find himself in most difficult ground” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). The drive on the 12th was similar: “rough ground and a ditch” had to be “carried” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). The 11th hole was said to be easy “once the bunker is carried” by the drive (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). There were similar holes at Huntercombe. On the 1st, for instance, “To punish a badly played drive, a bunker is placed about 110 yards from the tee” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
The long grass or “rough” to be carried with the tee shot on some holes at Sunningdale became a regular feature of golf course design and remains so today.
Note that Park’s sand bunkers that had to be carried with the drive seem not to have been cop bunkers. On Sunningdale’s 10th, for instance, “The tee shot is down hill but a topped ball … brings vast trouble in its train. I rather fancy, however, that the bunker at this hole is too low, for I have noticed many balls run it” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). In other words, there was no high, steep cop to stop balls from running through this bunker. Similarly, a ditch to be carried by the drive on Sunningdale’s 17th was also rather benign: “the ditch at the bottom of the hill is the only danger, and that not a great one” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 246).
Given that Park suggested in The Game of Golf that it was not necessary to design a cross bunker to penalize each bad shot on one-shot, two-shot, and three-shot holes, one is not surprised to find that on many holes at both Sunningdale and Huntercombe, he omitted cross bunkers at many places where they were found on Dunn’s courses.
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On certain holes, there was a cross bunker to be carried by the drive, but then no bunkers thereafter. On Sunningdale’s 11th hole, for instance, there was a cross bunker to be cleared by the drive, but there was not a second bunker to be cleared with the next shot and there was no bunker guarding the green: “once the bunker is carried, all is fairly plain sailing, as the green … is unguarded” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). And on Sunningdale’s 12th, after “rough ground and a ditch” were “carried” by the drive, there was “not much to stop one” on the way to the green (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). Sunningdale’s 17th was similar: “The seventeenth is fairly plain sailing, as the ditch at the bottom of the hill is the only danger, and that not a great one” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 246).
On other holes, there was no cross bunker to be carried by the drive, but there was a bunker to be carried by the second shot. On Sunningdale’s 7th hole, for instance, a long second shot was “necessary to land the ball over the second bunker which guards the green” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). Similarly, we learn that on the 5th hole at Huntercombe, there is no cross bunker confronting the drive but “there is a very large bunker to be carried with the second” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
Although there was a cross-bunker for the second shot on Huntercombe’s 5th hole, there were some two-shot and three-shot holes that had no cross bunkers at all. The only bunkers on Huntercombe’s par-4 9th hole, for instance, were beside the green: “The ninth is a good four hole with putting green on the slope, guarded by bunkers on all sides” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
Park also designed some one-shot holes where no carry was required; instead, bunkers round the green provided the challenge – as was the case at some of the par-3 holes at Huntercombe: “The second is a short sporting hole … with punchbowl putting green protected by bunkers and gorse”; similarly, “Lucky indeed is the man who can get a 3 on the twelfth hole, which is protected by bunkers on the right and left” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842, 843).
But he also designed many one-shot holes that indeed required a cross bunker to be carried. The 4th hole at Huntercombe, for instance, required several hazards to be carried: “The fourth hole is a very difficult three as there are many hazards of all kinds before the large putting green is reached”; Huntercombe’s “sixth is a short but very tricky hole. A large bunker has to be carried from the tee”; also at Huntercombe, “The fifteenth can be reached from the tee, but … two bunkers and a sunk pit punish the topped ball” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842, 843, 843).
Park’s architectural logic regarding the cross bunkering of par-3 holes is implied in The Game of Golf by his criticism of “leveller” holes:
Holes which can be reached with a drive and iron should, unless properly guarded by hazards, be very sparingly laid down because they are likely to prove what has not inaptly been termed “levellers” – that is to say, the ball can be driven onto the green in two strokes by anybody and it may be that at such holes, if not guarded, there is little advantage in getting away a good drive because even if the drive is foozled, any ordinary player can put his ball on the putting green with his second stroke.
The result is that one man who has driven a good shot may have a shorter approach to play while another who has got a bad drive … will only have a longer approach to play and his mistake will thus cost him very little.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 199-200)
Similarly, on a one-shot hole without a bunker to be carried (and failing some other penal consequence for a misplayed shot, such as when there is on a one-shot hole where the green is significantly elevated), the golfer who hits a proper shot and the golfer who tops a shot can both end up on the putting green. Park therefore often placed cross bunkers on his one-shot holes at Sunningdale and Huntercombe.
In fact, a forced carry on one-shot holes remained a regular feature of his designs throughout his career. In 1916 at Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, one of the first par-3 holes that Park designed on his return to the United States (for the fist time in 20 years) required a dramatic carry:
The hazards will be mostly sand traps with a ravine here and there to play over.
For instance, take the seventeenth hole across the ravine, a hundred and sixty yards.
If a player plays this stroke properly, he can get this hole in two. Should he not, it might take him ten.
This is what we call a death or glory hole!
(Asheville Citizen-Times [North Carolina], 19 November 1916, p. 7)
Rather than systematically placing cross bunkers in front of all greens, Park had recommended in The Game of Golf the strategy instead of installing bunkers beside and behind greens – a strategy that he deployed on many of his Sunningdale and Huntercombe greens.
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On Huntercombe’s 1st hole, for instance, “The green itself is a beautiful one about seventy yards square, with a large sand bunker on the left and another smaller one to catch a sliced ball to the right” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842). At Huntercombe, we read, “there are bunkers to right and left of the green” on the 3rd hole, and “Lucky indeed is the man who can get a 3 on the twelfth hole, which is protected by bunkers on the right and left” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842). The bunker at Huntercombe’s 13th green was placed behind: “The approach needs a skimming shot, which is very difficult, as there is a large bunker placed to catch the too-strongly-played shot” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
Park’s practice of bunkering greens in this way obviously made playing approach shots to them strategically interesting.
On the one hand, by removing the conventional cross bunker stretched from side to side in front of the green, which invariably required a shot to be lofted over it, Park asked golfers to decide whether the hole was best approached by a lofted shot or a run-up shot. As Garden G. Smith observed of Park’s work at Huntercombe, “there are ample opportunities … for the running approach shot, a beautiful stroke that has almost been forgotten owing to the eternal presence of hazards closely guarding the green” (Garden G. Smith, The Tatler, 26 February 1902, p. 396).
On the other hand, with bunkering placed around the sides and back of greens, Park achieved two important effects. First, depending on how many bunkers he created around the green and where he placed them, shots played too long and/or too wide would be punished. Second, side bunkers at the green could be located in positions that would make approach shots easier from one side of the fairway rather than from the other, thereby asking golfers to make a decision about the preferred location from which to hit their approach shot even before making their drive: that is, Park’s greenside bunkering could require golfers to think about every shot on the hole before they played their first shot.
At both Sunningdale and Huntercombe, consistent with his suggestions in The Game of Golf, Park seems to have been more interested in laying out side hazards than in laying out cross bunkers. And so, to require golfers to “keep to the proper course,” Park frequently placed trouble left and right alongside his fairways.
For the tee shot on Sunningdale’s 10th, “a sliced or pulled one brings vast trouble in its train” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). Similarly, “A good line must be kept at the ninth, as the ground both to the right and left is teeming with difficulties” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 243). And Sunningdale’s 15th “needs very straight driving, the danger to a sliced ball being obvious and great” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 246). For the second shot on Huntercombe’s 1st hole, there were two bunkers “to catch a pulled shot” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842). Also at Huntercombe, “The fifth [was] a fine sporting hole with bunkers to right and left to punish pulled or sliced shots” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
Park required similar planning from golfers by installing bunkers that partly crossed fairways. Although there was no fairway-wide cross bunker on Sunningdale’s 3rd hole, for instance, there was a bunker on the right side of the fairway on the most direct line to the hole: “You want a very big drive to carry the bunker at the third hole, and, for the ordinary man, it is perhaps better to play for safety to the left” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 October 1902, p. 242). Similarly, on Huntercombe’s 1st hole, “To punish a badly played drive, a bunker is placed about 110 yards from the tee, whilst further on are two others to catch a pulled shot or one that is played too fine with a view to going the short way to the hole” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 October 1903, p. 842).
Thirteen years later, the kind of holes at Sunningdale and Huntercombe that required golfers to decide whether “to play for safety or undertake risk in “going the short way to the hole” would be recommended by Walter J. Travis:
My idea of bunkering a course would be to make it easy for the short player … easy with regard to limitations of distance, but usually at the expense or sacrifice of a stroke on the majority of the holes.
Leave him a fairly open avenue provided his shots keep the line mapped out for him, but the route so laid out for him would not necessarily be in a direct line to the hole.
The comparative freedom from trouble would have to be paid for by the negotiation of accurately placed shots along a narrow line of greater aggregate length than that offered the good player.
(Walter J. Travis, “The Constituents of a Good Golf Course,” American Golfer, vol 1 no 7 [May 1909], p. 377)
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Asking golfers to make strategic decisions about whether to take a longer but safer route to the hole (a route avoiding hazards) or to take “the short way to the hole” (requiring carries over hazards) would become a staple feature of strategic golf course architecture in the early twentieth century.
For their revolutionary use of side bunkers on fairways and for their equally revolutionary use of bunkers around the green, both of which encouraged golfers to plot a proper playing line to the hole, Park’s Sunningdale and Huntercombe courses were rightly celebrated as historic breakthroughs in the design of inland golf courses.
Park's More Proper Course Within the Course Proper
Park recommends designing hazards around greens and along the sides of fairways to test a golfer’s ability to “to keep to the proper course” (The Game of Golf, pp. 204-205). This phrase deserves attention.
Of course, the importance (as well as the difficulty) of “keeping to the course” and “keeping the line” was recognized by golfers well before phrases such as these emerged in writing about golf.
And so, versions of the phrase “keeping the line” were fated to became very common in golf writing. In 1889, for instance, Bernard Sayers lost a hole in his match against Willie Campbell at Prestwick because he “failed to keep the line” – that is, he failed to keep to the fairway (Glasgow Herald, 23 September 1889, p. 9). In 1886, when Campbell played a match against James Morris at St. Andrews, a writer explained why their scores were so high: “measured by the scores, the play was not up to the average of amateur work, but this was accounted for by the great difficulty of keeping on the line” because of the “boisterous weather” (Dundee Courier [Scotland], 14 May 1886, p. 4). A similar problem plagued the Open championship at St. Andrews in 1888: “The weather was bright, but half a gale blew from the north-west. And the players had difficulty to keep the line” (Northern British Daily Mail, 8 October 1888, p. 7).
In a description of an imaginary match in a poem called “Golf Song” published in 1889, the poet observes that his opponent has “drawn” his ball “in the bent” (that is, “into the rough”) and is “a long shot off the course” and then declares:
“Oh, always keep the line of the hole”
Is a maxim of the game.
Oh, always keep the line of the hole ….
(Dundee People’s Journal [Scotland], 1 June 1889, p. 6)
As in the poem above, talk of keeping the line generally meant keeping the ball on the fairway.
It is sometimes unclear, however, whether the phrase “keeping to the course” meant staying on the fairway or staying on the golf course property, as in the following example from 1880, in which the golf writer for the Dundee Evening Telegraph uses the phrase to describe play at Arbroath: “The weather on Saturday was excellent, although the high wind was troublesome, making it difficult to keep on the course” (Dundee Evening Telegraph [Scotland], 26 April 1880, p. 4, emphasis added). The case is similar in the following description of play on the Garleton course in 1886: “The ground was in fairly good order, but a high wind made it impossible to keep to the course” (Haddington Advertiser and East Lothian Journal, 19 February 1886, p. 2, emphasis added). Similarly, a correspondent in Field uses the phrase ambiguously to describe play on a windy day at Carnoustie in 1887: “The weather on Saturday was, on the whole, favourable for good play, the only drawback being the wind, which was just a shade strong, rendering it difficult to keep on the course at the narrowest parts” (Field [London], 29 October 1887, p. 687, emphasis added).
A golf writer for the Dumfries and Galloway Standard uses the phrase similarly in 1889 to describe play on the newly opened Braid Hills course in Edinburgh: “It is at present very rough and a heavy toll of lost balls is demanded from all who cannot keep to the course which at its greatest width is about forty yards” (Dumfries and Galloway Standard [Scotland], 11 September 1889, p. 6, emphasis added). In this example, since it is said that the widest part of the course is about forty yards, it is clear that the word course here means “fairway.” And it could well mean the same thing in the examples above.
In 1883, the Dundee Courier’s advice for playing a particular hole at Ardeer clearly uses this phrase to indicate the necessity of staying on the fairway (or fair green) as opposed to wandering into the rough or bunkers.: “When playing the third hole, you must keep well on the course, and if you play a strong game, not more than four or five strokes should be taken to hole out. Have a care lest you land in purgatory (a bunker lying behind the hole), or you may take ten to get out and lose all chance of low scoring” (Dundee Courier [Scotland], 17 September 1883, p. 3, emphasis added). To keep on the course is to keep out of troubles such as bunkers and rough.
In every instance quoted above, the word course was used indicate spatial bounds – whether the bounds of the golf course property in general or the bounds of the fairway in particular. But there was another sense of the word “course” that was increasingly invoked in descriptions of golf – and Park would avail himself of it.
Course can also mean “direction” or “route,” and there is something of this sense of the word in a Field correspondent’s use of it when describing a windy round of golf at the Seaton Carew Golf Club: “So great was the effect of the wind on the ball that it had to be driven fifty yards into the wind (which came from a diagonal direction) to keep the usual course in going out” (Field [London], 26 October 1889, p. 599, emphasis added). The phrase “usual course” seems to mean “usual route.”
In 1892, the same interest in direction, rather than simply staying within bounds, is expressed by the golf writer for the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail when describing a player who was “keeping steadily to the track, and, if not guilty of herculean drives, was at least keeping the direct course for the shortest way home” (Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail [Yorkshire], 21 November 1892, p. 4).
Similarly, in 1891, Horace G. Hutchinson twice used the word “course” in a phrase virtually identical to the phrase that Park would use in 1896 – but Hutchinson once used it to mean “direction” and once used it to mean “fairway.”
In his poem “Golfing Song,” Hutchinson celebrates the gutta-percha golf ball as the best of all time, itemizing the failures of other balls – such as the “Silvertown”:
When I survey the world around,
The wondrous things that do abound;
The ships that on the sea do swim
To keep out foes that none come in,
Well, let them all say what they can,
‘Twas for one end, the use of man;
So I wish him joy, whate’er befall,
Who first found out the Gutty Golf-ball.
* * * * * * * * * *
Then what do you say to the “Silvertown”?
Oh! ‘tis very well when the wind you go down,
But when it’s a-blowing a breeze in your face,
Why you’re apt to alight in a very queer place,
For smite as you may, and with all your force,
Yet it hardly will hold to its proper course ….
(Horace G. Hutchinson, “Golfing Song,” in The Scots Observer, 14 September 1891, p. 465)
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Here, Hutchinson explains that when the “Silvertown” golf ball is played into the wind, the golfer will probably miss the fairway and end up “in a very queer place” because the ball will not “hold its proper course” – that is, it will not go in the direction it was hit.
In Famous Golf Links, Hutchinson used virtually the same phrase to describe play at Montrose: “The sixth … and seventh … holes present no special features of interest provided you keep the proper course. But the course here is rather narrow and flanked with occasions of interest of a painful nature” (Famous Golf Links, p. 157). He clearly means that to avoid painful flanking hazards, the golfer must keep the ball on the fairway.
Versions of the phrase “to keep to the proper course” obviously had a long history predating Park’s use of it, but Park seems to have intuited that the ambiguity of the phrase allowed for architecturally innovative thinking: that is, Park recognized that by the careful use of hazards, an architect can indicate a course (in the sense of a particular direction or “line of play”) within the course (in the sense of the general “the bounds of the fairway”) that is a more “proper course” or line of play than another.
Consider his explanation in The Game of Golf as to why a bunker in “the line of play” is architecturally legitimate:
I know that a bunker on the line of play, and into which a good stroke may get, is frequently considered a trap [an illegitimate entrapping device], but this is an opinion which I cannot altogether endorse.
If the bunker is visible to the player, and there is sufficient room to avoid it, it cannot properly be called a trap.
Golf as a game of skill requires that a player should be able to place his ball, and if he sees the hazard, and knows there is danger of getting in, the proper thing for him to do is to drive his ball to one side or the other of the difficulty.
(The Game of Golf, p. 205)
The “proper thing” for the golfer to do is ‘to keep to the proper course” – which is to hold course (direction) for the “side” of the course (fairway) chosen “to one side or the other of the difficulty.”
Park knows that the entire fairway has traditionally been regarded as “the line of play,” but he clearly regards it as a legitimate architectural strategy to use visible bunkers as a way to indicate to golfers that the best strategy is to follow a more particular “line of play” within the general “line of play” marked by the fairway.
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Park conceives of hazards as providing information regarding the proper line of play in the same way that direction guideposts indicate the proper line of play for blind shots:
Although blind holes (i.e. holes at which the player does not see the flag) are objectionable, they cannot always be dispensed with, but an endeavour should be made to place the hole in such a position that it can be seen in playing the approach.
Having to play a blind stroke through the green [i.e. fairway] or from the tee is less objectionable than having to play a blind approach.
In all cases, a guidepost should be placed to show the direction in which the ball is intended to be played, not necessarily in the direct line to the hole.
The guidepost should indicate safety to the average player.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 205-06)
Although guideposts do so positively, whereas fairway bunkers do so negatively, they both provide information regarding safety and danger: they both “show the direction in which the ball is intended to be played, not necessarily in the direct line to the hole.”
John Laing Low is lionized for installing at Woking Golf Club in the early 1900s just such a bunker as Park describes in The Game of Golf (1896). Indeed, as we shall see later, some see the creation of Low’s bunker as the beginning of strategic golf course design. But we can see that Park had also recognized several years earlier that it was possible – and architecturally interesting – to use the placement of hazards as a way of asking golfers not just to keep the ball on the fairway, but also to plot a line within each fairway that would both avoid fairway hazards and allow the best angle of approach to a green surrounded by hazards.
And as we shall also see, Willie Davis employed very similar design strategies on the new nine holes that he designed for the Newport Golf Club late in 1896 – several years before the Sunningdale, Huntercombe, and Walton Heath courses had become even a gleam in an architect’s eye, and several years before two famous holes were dug in the middle of the 4th fairway at Woking.
Had Davis worked out a new approach to inland golf course architecture on his own? Had he read Park’s 1896 book and decided to employ its recommendations? Or had he talked about new ideas for inland golf course architecture with Park himself when the two men met at Newport in 1895?
Willie Davis Returns to Hoylake 1895
As we know, from 1881 to 1892, Willie Davis was the only golf professional working as such in North America, and he was the only professional golf course architect. Before Willie Dunn arrived at Shinnecock Hills in the spring of 1893 and later that year began laying out golf courses, Davis seems to have operated with an implicitly penal theory of golf course architecture derived from his experience of the Hoylake golf course. During the 1894 season, however, he began to play some of the new courses laid out by Dunn (including the 12-hole Davis-Cuthbert course at Shinnecock Hills where in 1893 Dunn added distinctive examples of his family’s cop bunkers to several holes), and so Davis was introduced to the Dunn family’s methods of designing and locating hazards on inland golf courses.
Also in 1894, Davis decided to visit Britain at the end of the golf season, sailing for Southampton at the beginning of 1895. He would visit relatives, play golf, and make arrangements for golf in Newport to prosper: he ordered golf equipment to be sent to his pro shop in Newport, he hired a golf professional to assist him at the Club, and he worked to improve his game by playing matches against some of Britain’s strongest players. He was preparing for the U.S. Open, which the newly formed United States Golf Association had announced in December 1894 would be held at Newport late in 1895.
During his three months in England and Scotland, Davis would see the changes that had been made to the Hoylake course and he would observe how inland golf course design had been influenced by Tom Dunn.
In January of 1895, Willie, his wife Mary (three months pregnant with their last child Russell), and their young boys John (about six years old) and Lawrence (about two years old), sailed to England. Willie would see his mother and two of his sisters for the first time in almost fourteen years, and (for the first and only time) his mother would meet the only grandchildren she would ever know.
According to Willie’s diary entries, what preoccupied him on the family’s journey to Hoylake was Mary’s health:
1/15- Mary on board, not feeling well, up all night. Children very well.
1/16- Mary keeping up well, a little sick at night.​
1/17- Mary very sick, ship rolling.
1/19- Mary on deck for a short while.
1/20- Mary very sick.
1/21- Mary better, but still unable to eat. Children keeping well.
1/22- Mary not up all day. Everyone wishing to get home.
1/23- Arrived Bishop's Rock.
1/24- Disembarked. Train to London, then train to Hoylake arrived at 6 PM. Mother and sisters disappointed at non-arrival the day before.
1/25- Glad to rest, did not leave house. Mary is not feeling well. Children unsettled.
(Willie Davis, Diary for 1895, courtesy of Susan A. Martensen)
Given that the couple’s last child, William Russell Davis, was born in Newport on 15 July 1895, exactly six months after the family set sail for England, I assume that Mary was suffering both from seasickness and from morning-sickness.
Willie enjoyed reconnecting with his sisters – going for a walk with “Sarah” (Sarah Hindley Davies) one day, going to church with “Bessie” (Mary Elizabeth Davies) the next, and going for a “Walk with Sarah and Bessie” a few weeks later. Willie and his family often accompanied his mother and his sister Mary on visits to family friends in West Kirby.
Figure 143 1870s posters advertising Hengler's Grand Cirque.
He invited Sarah and Mary to accompany him and his family to a performance of Hengler’s Grand Cirque in Liverpool. This was the greatest circus in Britain. It had purpose-built theatres in the big cities, including Liverpool. Jenny Hengler (depicted in the poster to the left) was the star. She was the owner's daughter and famous as the most beautiful woman in Britain. She married the Cirque’s mysterious Polish horseman (shown in the other poster), Count Waldemar Alexander Oscar Kamienski.
​
That day out at the circus must have cost Willie a bundle.
The house that Willie “did not leave” on the day after his arrival at Hoylake was, of course, Greenham Cottage West. And for much of the next three months, he lived here beside the Hoylake golf course, where he played golf regularly with his third cousin, Donald Ball. In fact, the day before the family set out on its journey back to Newport, Willie recorded in his diary: “3/14- Last golf round at Hoylake with D. Ball” (Willie Davis, Diary for 1895, courtesy of Susan A. Martensen).
Davis and Donald Ball may also have played at the nearby Leasowe Golf Club about five miles northeast of Hoylake. The Club was formed in 1891 to accommodate golfers unable to get on the Hoylake links. His cousin John Ball, Jr, regularly played in Leasowe Golf Club competitions throughout the 1890s (he served as Club Captain from 1891 to 1895), and presided over the Club’s removal from its original course – which had been laid out by Jack Morris on the northeast side of Hoylake and was subsequently taken over by the Moreton Ladies Golf Club in 1894 (with two of John Ball’s sisters as founding members) – to a new one.
Figure 144 Donald Ball, early 1900s.
Donald Ball was a first cousin of Open Champion and Amateur Champion John Ball, Jr. Their common grandfather was farmer and hotelier John Ball (1804-1887). He was the father, on the one hand, of the Liverpool Golf Club founder known as John Ball, Snr (1833-1905), who later took over the Royal Hotel (as would Open and Amateur Champion John Ball, Jnr, in turn) and, on the other hand, of Joseph Ball (born 1838), a farmer who was the father of Donald Ball.
Attending a banquet to celebrate the Open Championship victory by John Ball, Jr, in 1890, Donald Ball was described as “amongst the champion’s more intimate circle of friends” (Birkenhead News [Cheshire, England], 27 September 1890, p. 5). First playing golf as a nine-year-old at Hoylake, Doanld Ball was never as good a golfer as John Ball, Jr, but he was described in advance of the 1897 Amateur Championship as a “capable player” who had “already made at least one bold bid for championship honours” (Liverpool Daily Post, 18 May 1897, p. 4).
In the fall of 1898, Donald Ball accepted Willie’s invitation to become a golf professional and to serve as his assistant at Newport for the 1899 season. In the fall of 1899, Ball was planning to work as Davis’s assistant at the Washington Golf Club during the winter, but when Davis was hired in November of 1899 to begin work immediately at the Apawamis Golf Club in Rye, New York, Davis persuaded the Washington club to hire Ball as his replacement.
Ball would subsequently serve as head pro at the Ekwanok Golf Club, the Philadelphia Cricket and Country Club, and the Columbia Club in Washington, D.C. Ball then headed West. He served at a club in Victoria, British Columbia, during WWI, and then served at clubs in California in the 1920s and Washington State in the late 1920s. He had become a noted golf course architect in the latter two states. In 1930, he died alone in Grays Harbor, Washington State, the cause of death being recorded as suicide caused by "despondency": he drowned himself in the Hoquiam River. When his body was found three weeks after he disappeared, the headline was: "Golf Architect Found." Newspapers revealed that he was suffering "acutely" from stomach cancer.
Figure 145 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) during one of the approximately 1200 rounds of golf he played while President of the United states from 1913 to 1921.
When authorities went through Ball’s belongings left in his hotel room, they found a cherished letter dating from his days as head pro at the Columbia Golf Club in Washington, D.C.:
My Dear Mr. Ball:
It was very kind, generous and thoughtful of you to send me the driver as a Christmas gift and I thank you most warmly.
It is a delightful evidence of your friendship.
Woodrow Wilson
December 1913
Becoming a friend of one of the most famous US Presidents, the farmer's son had travelled far from Hoylake.
Newspapers reported various purposes for Davis’s trip to the Old Country: “Mr. W.F. Davis, of the Newport Golf Club, has sailed for Europe where he will play for the championship of Europe” (Providence News [Rhode Island], 17 January 1895, p. 4). There was another more detailed report: “William F. Davis, the professional golf player of the Newport Club, sailed for Europe Wednesday, to remain until April. He will play in numerous tournaments in England and Scotland and will go into the world’s championship contests at Sandwich, in Kent, and at St. Andrews” (Philadelphia Inquirer [Pennsylvania], 18 January 1895, p. 4).
The New York Sun offered yet more information:
Davis to Seek Golf Honors in Europe
Newport, R.I., Jan 15 – Willie Davis, who is in charge of the links here, sailed for Europe today, and will play in all the big tournaments, particularly those at St. Andrews in Scotland and at Sandwich in Kent, England, for the championship.
These are the world’s most important golf tourneys and Davis expects to win a fair standing.
He will resume his position on April 1 with the Newport Club, whose officers instructed him to secure the strongest player he could find for a second man here.
Davis will play throughout England and Scotland.
(Sun [New York], 17 January 1895, p. 8)
The fullest account of the information Davis and the Newport Golf Club gave out is found in a report in a Montreal newspaper:
Davis Will Play in Europe
On Tuesday last, W.F. Davis, the professional golfer who has had charge of the links at Newport, R.I., sailed for Europe.
He has gone over to play in the chief golf tournaments on the other side, including those at St. Andrews in Scotland and at Sandwich and [in?] Kent in England. The golf tournaments held at the above named places are the most important held in England and Scotland.
On April 1, he will again take charge of the links at Newport, and he has been instructed by the officers of the club to secure the strongest player that he can to be a second man at Newport.
Davis hopes to make a good standing in the contests in which he will take part, and his friends wish him success.
(Gazette [Montreal], 22 January 1895, p. 8)
The latter report in the Montreal Gazette may have been based on information provided by Davis, for he remained in contact with Montreal newspapers after he left for Newport, as we can see from a letter he wrote late in 1893 about missing Montreal: “I get lonesome sometimes for Montreal news and feel I would like to know what is going on. Hope the Golf Club is booming” (Montreal Star, 14 October 1893, p. 7). And note the personal note at the end of the Gazette’s item – “his friends wish him success” – which seems to refer to the good wishes on his behalf of people in Montreal who remembered him fondly.
Whatever the source of the information in the newspaper items above, it is clear that reporters got many things wrong. For instance, there was no such thing as a golf “championship of Europe,” so this part of the newspaper reports was nonsense. And since the reports indicate that Davis would resume his charge of the Newport links in April, reports that he intended to play in the Open Championship at St. Andrews in June were also nonsensical.
I suspect that the items cited above compress reports of information disseminated by Davis himself and perhaps also by people associated with the Newport Golf Club – but information compressed and distorted to the point of ludicrous inaccuracy.
Davis presumably told reporters that the “chief golf tournament” of 1895 would be the Open Championship to be played at St Andrews. He may have told reporters that this competition would effectively determine the champion of Europe or the world.
And he presumably also told reporters that the previous Open Championship had been played at the Royal St. George’s Golf Club at Sandwich in Kent.
I can imagine that such information became distorted into reports that he intended to play in championships at St. Andrews and Sandwich.
One further twist on the information provided to newspapers about Davis’s purpose in going to Britain appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript: “His idea is chiefly to improve his game that he may take the lead among American golfers …. While abroad, Davis will meet the world’s strongest golfers” (Boston Evening Transcript, 17 January 1895, p. 6).
Whether Davis played in any golf tournaments in England and Scotland is not clear, but we know some of the places that he played golf. In mid-March, Golf editor Robertson commented on Davis’s visit:
W.F. Davis, the professional to the Newport, Rhode Island, Golf Club of America, after spending fourteen years in Canada and the United States, is just now visiting the greens of this country on a holiday of two or three month's duration.
He has lately been playing at North Berwick and is now at Hoylake.
​
His neat and finished style of play has been greatly admired.
(Golf [London], March 1895)
At North Berwick, one of the courses that Davis would have been most interested to play was no doubt the new layout at Muirfield which had hosted the 1892 Open Championship (and would host it again the year after Davis’s visit to Britain). As we know, this course had been stiffened after the 1892 championship by the addition of cop bunkers, so Davis may well have availed himself of this opportunity to study the nature and location of this layout’s state-of-the-art cross bunkers.
Davis also played golf at St. Andrews.
He travelled from Hoylake to Edinburgh on February 20th and then went north the next day: “Feb. 21st – Called on NBR Co. [National British Railway Company] and left order for balls, bags, ball cleaners, tees, and [illegible], then left for St. Andrews" (diary). He had stayed overnight in Edinburgh not just to order acquire golf equipment and arrange for its transportation, but also to visit his “cousin Lottie” (Charlotte) (diary).
Charlotte Hindley Davies (1863-1950) was the daughter of Thomas Davies (older brother of Willie's father John Davies) and the daughter of Joanna Hale (older sister of Willie's mother Esther). And so, Willie and Lottie were cousins by a double route! Lottie had married Andrew Archibald (1859-1930) in the West Kirby Parish Church in May of 1894 and then moved to Edinburgh.
Lottie was little more than a year older than Willie but lived almost half a century longer than he did.
Davis stayed in St. Andrews for four or five days, not just playing golf but also negotiating the hiring of an assistant:
Mr. Davis, while abroad, played on the famous St Andrews links, and in other parts of Scotland.
He was successful against some of the strong men in England and Scotland.
Mr. Davis' mission was to secure an assistant, and he made an arrangement with one of the best players at St Andrews, who will soon arrive here.
(Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 'Cottage Seekers Coming', 27 March 1895, p. 7)
Figure 146 James Anderson, Jr. Dundee Evening Telegraph, 11 March 1898, p. 3.
Figure 147 Horace Rawlins, circa early 1890s.
Davis was after one of the hottest prospects in Scottish golf: Jamie Anderson, Jr, son of 1877, 1878, and 1879 Open Champion Jamie Anderson, Sr. Many golf clubs were interested in hiring young Anderson, but Willie's offer was the one he accepted.
Willie announced when he arrived back in Newport that young Anderson was coming and would arrive by 1 May 1895.
Alas, Davis’s great catch at St. Andrews never showed up at the Newport Golf Club.
​
When Anderson renegued on his contract, Davis immediately replaced him with Horace Rawlins, who set sail for New York on 4 May 1895.
The newspapers say Davis coached him up, refining his style. And then he talked him up, declaring that he was an apt pupil. Consequently, a Newport Golf Club member offered a substantial purse to see teacher take on pupil in a match on 9 August 1895.
​
Lo and behold, in October of that year, young Rawlins won the first US Open on Willie Davis’s Newport course. Nearly everyone had expected the likely winner to be Willie Davis or Willie Dunn or Willie Campbell, and so there was general surprise when young Rawlins won. Willie Dunn was 2nd, two strokes behind; Davis was 5th, five strokes behind; Campbell was 6th, six strokes behind.
I say that no one expected Rawlins to win – no one except Willie Davis, that is.
​
Davis knew from his coaching of Rawlins, and from his match against him in August, that the young lad was improving by leaps and bounds. By the time of the US Open in October, Davis expected Rawlins to be as good as any of the seasoned pros. Years later, a sports writer who knew and admired Davis revealed that Willie Davis had actually "bet heavily" on Rawlin's winning the title: Willie Davis made a killing.
Poor Jamie Anderson ... if he had fulfilled his agreement with Willie Davis, he would have had a very good chance of having become the first winner of the US Open. Anderson, rather than Rawlins, might have been the one to take pride of place as an immortal in United States golf history.
I presume that Davis learned before the end of April that Anderson would not be coming to Newport and that he immediately arranged to replace him with Horace Rawlins.
How had he learned of Rawlins? Had Davis heard of or met Rawlins while he was in Britain, perhaps deciding then that Rawlins was his second choice for assistant?
As though Rawlins had been apprenticed under Dunn, American newspapers reported that “Horace Rawlins … had left Tom Dunn’s shop at Bournemouth for America,” (Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, New York], 7 January 1901, p. 11). But Rawlins had been mentored since he was a caddie by Arthur Jackson, the golf professional at the Royal Isle of Wight Golf Club. As Rawlins explained to the Utica Observer in 1896:
He was born in the Isle of Wight in 1874.
At the age of twelve, he began caddying and playing golf on the Royal Isle of Wights links, then considered the best in England, and has followed this fascinating sport since.
At the age of 18, he took charge of the green in Hertfordshire, just above London, and was subsequently engaged at Raynes Park, near Wimbledon, and Bournemouth.
(Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5)
Figure 148 Arthur Jackson. Bournemouth Graphic [England], 23 February 1912, p. 3.
Jackson was a golf course architect in his own right, but he was also closely associated with Tom Dunn: “for some considerable period, he acted in in the capacity of foreman to Tom Dunn at Bournemouth” (Sporting Life [London, England], 16 November 1907, p. 7). Rawlins’ move from work in 1894 under Jackson at Raynes Park (which Dunn laid out in the spring of 1894 and which Jackson seems to have built), to work under Tom Dunn at Bournemouth occurred late in 1894 or early in 1895 and was probably mediated by Jackson.
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And so, Rawlins had been in Dunn’s shop at Bournemouth for a very short time.
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Had Davis sought Tom Dunn’s advice about the “strongest” players in England and been told by him of Rawlins?
Could Davis’s hiring of Horace Rawlins be a sign that he had visited Tom Dunn at Bournemouth before sailing from nearby Southampton back to Newport in the spring of 1895? Had he met Rawlins in Dunn’s shop at Bournemouth? The question is an interesting one – and all the more so given that one consequence of Davis’s trip back to Britain during the winter of 1895 was that when he redesigned his Newport layout in the spring of that year, he added artificial bunkers that flamboyantly emphasized an artificiality reminiscent of the flamboyant artificiality of Dunn’s most recent creations.
The 1895 Newport Nine
After his winter in Britain, Davis had been back in Newport less than two months when the New York Sun’s golf writer H.L. Fitzpatrick reported at the beginning of May that Davis had added a quarter of a mile to the length of the 1894 course. Fitzpatrick also reported that Davis was awaiting Havemeyer’s approval of his work: “It may be that Mr. Havemeyer will have other changes made” (Sun [New York], 11 May 1895, p. 5).
I presume that Fitzpatrick got his information about plans for the revised Newport layout from Davis himself and that what Havemeyer would be asked to inspect and approve was Davis’s plans to add the latest in artificial bunkers to the course:
Championship Golf Course
Newport, June 24 – The Executive Committee of the Newport Country Club has decided to begin at once the laying out of a golf course for the championship contests.
They do not take place till October, but it was thought desirable to have work commenced at once, and a contractor has already been engaged.
It is proposed to have the course a very stiff one, and some peculiar bunkers are to be constructed.
(New York Times, 25 June 1895, p. 6)
Davis probably imported from Britain these ideas for “peculiar bunkers”; they were no doubt part of the plan to make the golf course challenge a “stiff one.”
When the American correspondent for Golf (London) reported on the US Open at Newport in October of 1895, he thought that Davis had been too zealous in his use of artificial hazards:
Neither time nor expense has been spared, and what was last year but an unexplored swamp is now one of the finest golf links in the country.
The green throughout the course [i.e., the fairways] is very good, and it is an exception when a bad lie is encountered outside of the artificial hazards which have now been erected….
The hazards, which are mostly artificial ones, are well placed; but, if anything, there are too many for the length of the course, but this fact is excusable, taking into consideration the lie of the land, which is very undulating and, without the above mentioned hazards, would be rather uninteresting ….
(Golf [London], vol 11 no 278 [8 November 1895], p. 182)
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The Providence Evening Telegram described the “extended” Newport layout shortly after the course formally opened for the Newport “season” in July of 1895: “The entire circuit of the course, nine holes, is 2,755 yards, nearly one and two-thirds miles, but it takes a good two-mile walk to get around the links” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3). It then described each of the nine holes, introducing readers to certain distinctive architectural features of the new course. Similarly, in connection with the first US Open Championship played on the new Davis course in October of 1895, a number of other newspapers and journals also mentioned certain architectural features that proved to be responsible for notorious difficulties encountered by certain participants in the competition.
Taken together, these contemporary newspaper reports allow us to appreciate the penal design practices employed by Davis on his lengthened Newport course of 1895.
Hole 1 (240 yards)
The first hole featured cross bunkers to trap poor drives: The first …. is called the Plateau Hole, and it is 240 yards to the putting green.
A series of three earth bunkers, from six to seven feet high, obstructs the drive 100 yards from the tee.
Figure 149 This photograph (taken August 1922 by Henry O. Havemeyer from the clubhouse) shows the final version of Davis's three cop bunkers as well as his original putting green on the "plateau" of the 1st hole (called "Plateau"). Waterman, pp. 170-71.
After these are passed, the player has good level ground to approach the green.
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3)
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Fitzpatrick observed in October that “The three earth bunkers, from six to seven feet high, which obstruct the drive on the Plateau Hole, recall the dirt fortifications at Islip” (Sun [New York], 2 October 1895, p. 4).
Fitzpatrick refers to the private course laid out in the mid-1890s by Willie Dunn at Long Island, New York, for William Bayard Cutting, Sr, whose estate was between Islip and Oakdale (the estate owner’s golf-obsessed son, William Bayard Cutting, Jr, became one of the country’s top amateur golfers).
As can be seen in the photograph below, this course, which became the home of the Westbrook Golf Club, exemplified Dunn’s typical fairway-wide cop bunkers.
Figure 150 Westbrook Golf Club, Islip, Long Island, New York, circa 1895. The two cop bunkers have a narrow gap between them through which golfers can walk.
Fitzpatrick’s further observations of the cop bunkers at Westbrook show that Willie Dunn duplicated for Bayard Cutting his own “Bastion Bunker” at Shinnecock Hills and created for him a version of the “Alps” that he would build at Ardsley Casino (his “Alps” echoing his brother Tom’s notorious “miniature mountain ranges”):
W. Bayard Cutting’s links at Islip are now completed and they make a very sporty course.
Owing to the flat country, the chief hazards are artificial ones, the dirt bunkers being made in a massive style never equalled in the States….
One of the dirt bunkers is shaped like an “S,” and another, the “Alps,” is a huge pile, 300 feet square and very high.
They look like fortifications.
(Sun [New York], 21 July 1895, p. 16)
Figure 151 Charles E. Sands, 1900 Paris Olympic Games. La Vie Au Grand Air, no. 109 (14 October 1900), p. 1.
On his 1st hole at Newport, Davis’s original “series of three earth bunkers” seems to have had a “narrow hole” or avenue between them just like the ones seen in the 1922 photograph above that shows the f inal version of this hole.
These gaps between cop bunkers were intended to allow golfers to pass through, but not golf balls.
But as Fitzpatrick observed during an early match in the USGA’s first Amateur Championship at Newport in October of 1895, on the 1st hole, “[Charles E.] Sands foozled his first drive but scraped through the narrow hole in the high bunker on the second shot” (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4).
Note that in 1895, there were two different fairways for the 1st hole, each of which is marked on the 16 September 1895 map below: a shorter one of just over 200 yards (represented by a solid line), with a tee box at Davis’s workshop, and a longer one of about 240 yards (represented by a broken line), with a tee box on a mound northwest of the clubhouse.
Figure 152 Detail from a topographical map drawn by W.H. Lawton, Jr, 16 September 1895. Reproduced in Fred Waterman, p. 166.
The shorter version of the 1895 1st hole is shown below in a photograph taken in 1899.
Figure 153 A match on the 1st hole of the Newport Golf club in 1899. Photograph from an album once belonging to Henry O. Havemeyer, now in the possession of the Newport Historical Society. Gift of Preservation Society of Newport County.
The camera that took the photograph above seems to have rested on the putting green, which takes up the bottom half of the photograph.
Figure 154 Behind and below the clubhouse appear the offices and golf professional’s workshop. Official Golf Guide of 1902. Ed. W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen (New York: Grafton Press, 1902), p. 307.
Seen In the background of the photograph above is the clubhouse and Davis’s workshop, beside which the tee box was located (the workshop also appears in the photograph to the left). One can also make out in the photograph above the first of the series of three cop bunkers on the 1st hole (the other two are obscured by the spectators).
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The longer version of the 1st hole was the one used in the 1895 U.S. Amateur and Open Championships, and it may have been the original 1st tee, for Fitzpatrick described it in the New York Sun in July of 1895:
“The first tee is placed just back of the clubhouse near the roadway leading up to the entrance” (Sun [New York], 22 July 1895, p. 7). Fitzpatrick mentioned no other 1st tee. The undated photograph below shows Willie Davis on the 240-yard version of the hole, preparing to play from the 1st tee box northwest of the clubhouse.
Figure 155 Willie Davis, circa 1895.
Davis must play across the main driveway that runs up to the clubhouse – a road that serves as a cross bunker from which there is no relief.
Behind him on the left side of the photograph is the old quarry that the drive on the 6th hole had to cross.
Trees in the background running diagonally downward from left to right mark the edge of Harrison Avenue, which was paralleled on its golf course side by a stone fence.
A dirt road running from Harrison Avenue to the Club’s barn and stables can be made out to the right of Davis.
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By 1901, the tee box for the 1st hole had been moved from its site close to Davis’s workshop to its third and final location – the south side of the clubhouse.
See the photograph below.
Figure 156 The third and final location of the 1st tee at the Newport Golf Club in the summer of 1901. Golf (New York), vol 9 no 4 (October 1901), p. 284.
But the series of three cop bunkers used on each of the two first fairways of 1895 was maintained and again placed about half way between the tee box and the original putting green on the plateau.
All three versions of the hole appear on the map below dated 1 September 1915 – a curious document that turns out to be a palimpsest, for many of the 1915 golf holes are drawn over top of golf holes that were first recorded on the map in September of 1899, but although past golf holes have been rubbed out, the smudged lines of tee boxes and putting greens from these earlier holes (as well as some of their hazards) remain, as in the case of the partially erased images of earlier versions of the 1st hole.
Figure 157 1915 map. Waterman, p. 166. The word “clubhouse” is highlighted in blue. As seen in the photograph of Willie Davis on the 1st tee box, the latter was surrounded by trees, some of which are marked on the map above.
The transparent yellow line above highlights the faint trace of the 240-yard 1st hole used in the 1895 U.S. Open and Amateur Championships.
The transparent blue line highlights the faint trace of the approximately 200-yard hole used at the Club after the 1895 championship tournament.
The solid black line marks the fairway in use by at least 1901.
The putting green for the 1st hole was located on a plateau for which the hole was named: “Plateau Hole.” When L.P. Stoddart and Winthrop Rutherford found themselves tied after 18 holes at the 1895 Amateur Championship, they played the 1st hole again in a sudden-death playoff:
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The men played for the first hole again to settle the tie.
The drives were about even.
In his second shot, Stoddart tried to make the putting green by a long cleek shot, but the ball hit the side of the raised green and ran down hill nearly into the swamp….
Rutherford won in 5 strokes to 6.
(Sun [New York], 2 October 1895, p. 4)​​
Figure 158 Detail from Lawton's 1895 map of the golf course.
The “swamp” mentioned above seems to have been on the left side of the 1st green, below the plateau on which “the raised green” was laid out.
The swamp was no doubt located along “the line of dry ground” drawn on Cotton’s 1894 map. As seen above, this swampy hazard seems to be marked on Lawton’s 1895 course map as an approximately rectangular shape on the left side of the green.
Hole 2 (385 yards)
The second hole was 385 yards long:
This is called the Reef Hole [it was later called “Brenton’s Reef”], and part of the course [that is, part of the route to the hole] is over high ground.
The first obstruction is a chain of bunkers eighty-five yards from the tee, which the player must be careful to drive over if he would keep out of difficulty at the start.
A bad drive [i.e. a bad second shot] to the left after passing the bunkers will land the ball in a patch of swampy ground, and before the hole is made [i.e., “before the hole is reached”], an open ditch 265 yards from the tee has to be passed.
The ditch is about six feet wide.
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After clearing this successfully, the player has a good approach to the green.
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3)
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It may have been called Reef or Brenton’s Reef because it was oriented toward the reef called Branton’s Reef, just off Brenton’s Point.
Figure 159 "Brenton's Reef, Ocean Avenue." Eighty Photographic Views of Newport, Rhode Island (Boston, Massachusetts: published by John L. Murphy, no date), n.p.
The “chain of bunkers” on the 2nd hole seems to have been a series of cop bunkers like the ones on the 1st hole.
The second hole’s two cross bunkers – first, the cop bunkers 85 yards from the tee and, second, an “open ditch …. about six feet wide” “265 yards from the tee” – reflect the standard spacing for the two sets of cross bunkers required on a two shot hole according to the tenets of the penal design theory practised by the Dunn family.
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Note that a bad second shot played left of the fairway would “land the ball in a patch of swampy ground.”
Davis seems to have laid out all of his 1894 and 1895 holes on the dry side (or west side) of the “line of dry ground.” Golfers hitting a ball to the wrong side of the line of dry ground deserved their fate in the “swampy ground.”
Hole 3 (165 yards)
Davis seems to have modelled his 3rd hole after the “Cop Hole” at Hoylake (originally the 5th hole at Hoylake, but the 6th hole by the time Davis left for Canada in 1881):
The third hole is the Cop Hole, and the distance from the tee is 165 yards.
Willie Davis calls this one of the best holes on the course.
The cop obstructing free approach to the hole is about thirty yards back of the green [i.e., about thirty yards before the green].
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3)
A drawing of this hole is visible on the 1915 palimpsest map.
Figure 160 Annotated detail from the 1915 map.
Figure 161 Charles Blair Macdonald. New York Times, 4 October 1895.
The Boston Globe referred to this cop bunker as a “ditch,” observing that in the final match of the 1895 amateur championship, “MacDonald landed in the ditch” and thereby lost the hole to his opponent Charles E. Sands (Boston Globe, 4 October 1895, p. 5).
But Fitzpatrick described the hole more accurately:
In playing for the Cop Hole, 165 yards, MacDonald … topped his drive, landing in the bunker – on the edge, to the right.
A side shot with the brassey [i.e., a shot played out sideways to avoid the steep cop] took the ball near the stone fence, outside the course proper [presumably the stone wall alongside Harrison Avenue marking the boundary of the Club’s property].
He holed out in five.
(Sun [New York], 4 October 1895, p. 5)
In the 1895 U.S. Open, Campbell also hit into the stone fence after pulling his first ball out of bounds over Harrison avenue. The troublesome stone fence in question appears in the photograph below, which shows golfers playing from Tillinghast’s 9th tee, which Tillinghast placed where Davis had located his 3rd green.
Figure 162 Golfer's play from the 9th tee in 1925. Newport Historical Society.
Hole 4 (190 yards)
The 4th hole had an equally dramatic cross bunker:
The fourth hole … is called the rock hole [it was later called “The Rocks”], and its drive is 190 yards.
It is a dead carry across swampy ground and was made in two strokes by Willie Davis in the professional [match] with Willie Park last Wednesday [17 July 1895].
(Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
The “swampy ground” functioned as the cross bunker required by penal design theory – the golfer forced to make a “dead carry across” it.
According to the map drawn up by Cotton and Lawton in 1894, the plan at that time had been to drain the swampy area across which Davis laid out his 1895 4th hole.
Figure 163 I have marked on the 1894 Cotton and Lawton map the lines of Davis's 4th and 5th fairways for his 1895 layout. One can see what appears to be an open ditch fed by pipe drains running perpendicular to the 4th fairway.
Since the area where the ditch and pipe drains were planned in 1894 remained swampy in 1895, one wonders whether the drainage plan was abandoned, or perhaps simply proved ineffective.
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The photograph of Davis on the 1895 1st tee shows eight trees (in whole or in part) surrounding him.
Figure 164 Davis on the tee of the 1st hole used in the 1895 U.S. Amateur and Open Championships.
And descriptions of the 5th hole indicate that it had many trees of a particular sort: “The f ifth hole is called the ‘Orchard Hole,’ as it runs through an orchard” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3). Fitzpatrick refers to golfers “playing through the gnarled and twisted old apple trees for the ‘Orchard Hole’” (Sun [New York], 2 October 1895, p. 4). And “Sands … got caught in the orchard” (Boston Globe, 4 October 1895, p. 5).
The 5th fairway was not far from the 1st tee, so trees surrounding Davis may be part of this orchard. See maps below showing these trees.
Figure 165 Detail from 1878 Bird's-Eye View of Newport.
The same trees seem to be marked on each map, but whether they are apple trees is unclear.
Figure 166 Detail from Newport map circa 1891. Newport Historical Society.
The long three-shot 5th hole at Newport had the three cross bunkers typical of such holes as laid out according to the tenets of penal golf course architecture:
The player is required to use considerable skill in reaching this hole without difficulty.
First, an ugly bunker running diagonally across the course is met, then comes an old stone wall which has been heavily banked up with earth, and then come two series of three bunkers fifty yards short of the hole.
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3)
One of these “two series of three bunkers fifty yards short of the hole” appears in the image below (by way of contrast, one can see in the background of this image the conventional straight-line cop bunker that Davis built on his six-hole practice course for women and beginners).
Figure 167 Play from the second “series of three bunkers” on the 5th hole. The New York Sun described this hazard as “the bunker before a high turf bank” (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4). Davis’s 6-hole ladies’ course appears in the background, as does the stone fence that bordered Harrison Avenue and ran along the entire length of the western half of the Club’s property. The image above is from Waterman, pp. 118-19.
Although a cop bunker might be a simple, single structure built in a straight line (like the one on Davis’s six-hole practice course for women seen in the background of the sketch above), and although three such straight-line cop bunkers might be presented side by side (as on the 1st hole), Davis’s 5th-hole cop bunkers overlap, making it possible for golfers to slip between them, but making it difficult for golf balls to do so.
Mind you, golf balls sometimes did wriggle through, as in the 1898 annual tournament for amateur golfers at Newport, when one player, ambitious to reach the green from a far distance, “foozled his first brassy and topped his second, but by good luck this latter stroke skipped between the bunkers and rolled into the green” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
In the 1895 Amateur Championship, Macdonald ended up “on the bunker for the fifth hole” (Sun [New York], 4 October 1895, p. 5, emphasis added). The Newport Golf Club had a local rule for such situations: when a player found “his ball lodging in the face of the bank …, under the rules of the Newport Club, he was allowed to move the ball a club’s length out into the sandy bunker” without penalty (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4).
We noted above that Tom Dunn’s bunkers in England were protected from the gouging strokes of over-enthusiastic golfers by similar local rules and speculated that since Davis’s assistant Horace Rawlins had arrived directly from Tom Dunn’s shop at Bournemouth in May of 1895, it is possible that he brought with him news of this cop-preserving local rule.
Figure 168 Drawing from the "Key" to the Staatsburg course painting (shown above).
The stone fence serving as the second cross bunker on the 5th hole was specially modified by Davis. Described above as “an old stone wall which has been heavily banked up with earth,” this hazard was turned into a cross bunker at the Newport Golf Club in the same way Davis had turned old stone fences at Staatsburg into cross bunkers.
Seen to the left is Davis’s “typical stone wall and sand trap” design, which shows how he effectively turned stone fences into cop bunkers.
Hole 6 (485 yards)
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Like the 5th hole, the 6th hole was also a three-shotter.
And so, according to the penal theory of the day, it also had to have three cross bunkers.
But the 6th hole further challenged golfers by its exceptional length. It was more than 100 yards longer than the 5th hole:
The sixth hole is the longest over the course, 485 yards.
It is known as the “Quarry Hole” as directly in front of the tee is an old stone quarry about forty yards across.
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A poor driver landing his ball in this quarry has practically lost all hope of making the hole in a good, winning score.
For sixty yards, the ground is very rough, then it becomes more level, and the next difficulty, an open bunker, is met 300 yards from the tee.
Then, close to the hole is a third bunker.
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3)
In the photograph below, Willie Davis (apparently wearing the same clothes as in the photograph above in which he stands on the 1st tee) seems to be posing in the quarry on the 6th hole.
Figure 169 Undated photograph of Willie Davis at the Newport Golf Club. Courtesy of Susan A. Martensen (great granddaughter of Willie Davis).
In the photograph above, the trees in the background presumably mark the border of Harrison Avenue. Above Davis’s head seems to be the “face” of the quarry that C.B. Macdonald drove into during the 1895 Amateur Championship: “In the drive for the quarry hole, the sixth, MacDonald struck the face of the old pit and his ball dropped down into the shale at the bottom” (Sun [New York], 4 October 1895, p. 5). Davis is presented as though he is playing out of the quarry backwards or sideways.
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In the photograph below, Q.A. Shaw, Jr, an early member of both the Newport Golf Club and the Country Club at Brookline, stands on the level part of the 6th fairway after clearing the quarry and the sixty yards of rough ground beyond it. Accompanied by his caddie, Shaw plays his second shot on this three-shot hole (during the Club's annual amateur tournament at the end of August in 1899, a competition open to members of all recognized golf clubs).
Figure 170 Q.A. Shaw, Jr, and an unidentified caddie on the 6th hole of the Newport Golf Club, August 1899. Photograph from an album originally belonging to Henry O. Havemeyer, now possessed by the Newport Historical Society.
In the photograph above, the “open bunker” 300 yards from the 6th tee is visible on the left. It is marked by a hazard flag (such flags had been used to mark hazards since the 1895 U.S. Amateur and Open Championships held on this course). Willie Campbell hit his second shot into this cop bunker during the 1895 US Open and was advised by Havemeyer (his scorer), “Better play back, Willie,” to which Campbell replied: “Na, na … I never played back in m’ life, an’ I’ll na begin the noo” (Golf [New York], vol 8 no 6 [June 1901], p. 432). Another cop bunker “close to the hole” is the one called the “third bunker” in the Evening Telegram’s description of the hole.
And so, with its quarry to be carried on the drive, with an “open bunker” next to be crossed 300 yards from the tee, and with “a third bunker” to be carried “close to the hole,” the 6th hole was a textbook example of penal design for three-shot holes.
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Hole 7 (300 yards)
Also visible in the photograph above is a rock outcropping beyond the 6th green near the stone wall bordering Harrison Avenue. In his reporting on the US Amateur and Professional championships in October of 1895, Fitzpatrick regularly referred to these “outcropping rocks near the ‘Quarry Hole’” (Sun [New York], 2 October 1895, p. 4). And he had to do so, for a outcropping figured in play as a “big rock near the tee in starting the seventh hole” (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4).
As the Providence Evening Telegram explained: “A few yards behind [i.e., in front of] the tee is a rock about thirty feet in height which has to be cleared on the drive to ensure success thereafter” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3). Here was the f irst fairway-wide penal cross bunker to be carried on the 7th hole.
And there was another, for once golfers had cleared the rock outcropping, a second cross bunker confronted them in the form of a “ditch,” which trapped players at the 1895 tournament (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4). Since, on the way to the hole (according to the Evening Telegram), “the ground [was] rough and swampy by turns,” the “ditch” in question was probably built for drainage (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
As the same Providence newspaper also noted: “The seventh hole is styled the ‘Harbor Hole’ as it runs down toward the harbor, a good 300-yard drive” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3). The phrase “runs down” was used advisedly, for the hole gently dropped from the height of the rock outcropping towards the low eastern part of the property where wetness was a constant problem.
Fitzpatrick also reported that “the stone wall” on the 7th hole trapped players at the 1895 tournament (Sun [New York], 3 October 1895, p. 4). The stone wall in question was probably the one along Harrison Avenue.
But it is also the case that on the 8th fairway, which paralleled the 7th fairway, there was a stone wall that crossed the entire width of the fairway. It ended more or less at the edge of the 7th fairway (rather than crossing it also), yet it is still quite possible that players on the 7th hole who hit their shots not very much right of the 7th fairway ran up against this stone wall hazard on the 8th hole.
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Note also a wooden fence along Moorland Road could constitute a problem for golfers approaching the 7th green, for the latter was located in a corner of the Club’s property formed by the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Moorland Road – the stone wall alongside the former and the wooden fence alongside the latter converging behind the green.
This fact can be seen in the photograph below, but the most interesting feature of this photograph is the most interesting feature of the 7th hole, for the latter’s putting green was guarded by a hazard said to be unique in the United States: “around the green a semi-circular bunker has been built – this being about the only hole in the country so guarded” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
Figure 171 This 1899 photograph was in an album once owned by Henry O. Havemeyer, now in the possession of the Newport Historical Society.
In the 1899 photograph above, the golfer on the left (watched by his opponent on the right) bends forward to line up his chip shot over the semi-circular bunker in question. He aims towards the flag held in the middle of the putting green by a forecaddie.
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Hole 8 (330 yards)
The 8th hole was know as the “Meadow Hole.” It paralleled the 7th hole (but ran in the opposite direction). Both holes were laid out in an area of open grassland with expansive views in various directions, a fact that appealed to Fitzpatrick: “The water view approaching the ‘Harbor Hole’ and the grassy hills devoid of trees suggest the Shinnecock Hills” (Sun [New York], 2 October 1895, p. 4).
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Cross bunkers featured prominently on this hole:
Figure 172 Annotated detail from the 1895 course map by Lawton.
“The drive [from the 8th tee was] obstructed with a stone wall and an open bunker” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
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The sentence quoted above was unintentionally deceptive. The map above shows that the wall and the bunker were not to be carried with a single drive: the “stone wall bunker” had to be carried by the drive from the 8th tee; the “open bunker” had to be carried by the approach shot to the green.
Of course, the stone wall and the open bunker in the 8th fairway were proper types of the two cross bunkers that were to be expected in the mid-1890s on any two-shot hole laid out according to the tenets of penal design theory – and they were placed exactly where the theory held they should be.
Hole 9 (320 yards)
The Providence Evening Telegram observes: “The ninth and last is the ‘Home Hole,’ coming back to the clubhouse, ending on the right of the driveway” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3). Note that the putting green for the 9th hole was “on the right of the driveway” only when viewed from the perspective of the clubhouse, as can be seen in the 1922 photograph below (which suggests that in 1922, the 9th green was still the original square green laid out by Davis in 1894 or 1895). The other road visible in this photograph (seen to the right of the green) ran up to the clubhouse from the stables and barn (this access road entered the property from Harrison Avenue, paralleling the driveway and running perpendicularly across both the 6th and 9th fairways down to the stables and barn).
Figure 173 Henry O. Havemeyer photograph, August 1922. Newport Historical Society. Gift of Preservation Society of Newport County.
This green can be seen from the opposite side in the 1898 photograph below.
Figure 174 Play on the 9th green circa 1898. Souvenir of Newport, circa 1898.
The Evening Telegram explains: “The distance from the tee [to the hole] is 290 yards and on the course [that is, on the way to the putting green] are two earth bunkers and a stone wall a little more than half way from the tee” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
The ‘two earth bunkers” mentioned above appear on the 1895 Lawton map of the course (shown earlier in this chapter), but the “stone wall” mentioned above does not. It does appear, however, on a map of the course that accompanied an account of the U.S. Open and Amateur Championships appearing in The Golfer in November of 1895.
Figure 175 The Golfer, vol no (November 1895), p. 12. One “Old Wall” yellow. One “Cop” light blue. Two “Sand Pots” light red. Three “Earth Bunker” light orange. One “Wall Bunker” burnt orange. Four “Open Ditches” light pink. Phrase “Open Bunker” dark blue, apparently referring to the semicircular bunker around the 7th green. One “Broken Ground” light purple. One “Quarry” darker purple. Nine putting greens coloured green.
This map, together with the Lawton map, shows that there were several bunkers and other hazards on the course not mentioned in the written descriptions cited above. Short of the 1st green, to the right, for instance, was a “sand pot” bunker. And crossing the 2nd fairway were three “sand pots,” one of which also served as a bunker for the 4th green.
And as certain of the cross bunkers and other hazards mentioned in the newspaper descriptions cited above were not drawn on either of the 1895 maps shown above, it is not clear that even the maps and the newspapers together provide a comprehensive account of Davis’s bunkering of the 1895 course.
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But one thing is abundantly clear: the Willie Davis course chosen to host the first USGA Amateur Championship and the first USGA Open Championship in 1895 was a classic example of penal golf course architecture: cop-bunkers as high as seven feet, ditches as wide as six-feet, chains of overlapping bunkers, earth-banked stone walls, rock outcroppings, and swamps – all hazards crossing the entire width of fairways at distances designed to require a full carry by the first, second, or third shot.
A Meeting of Men, and a Meeting of Minds
In the summer of 1895, Willie Davis met Willie Park, Jr, the 1887 and 1889 Open Champion who would soon – through his inland golf course designs at Sunningdale (England), in 1899, and at Huntercombe (England), in 1901 – become “the originator of the modern system of golf course design” (a phrase he printed in the top left corner of the golf course design pad he used when laying out dozens of courses after his arrival in North America in 1916).
In mid-July of 1895, Davis and Park spent several days together at Newport. They played two matches against each other over a course laid out by Davis, and they also seem to have discussed best practices regarding inland golf course upkeep and design.
Within six months of their time together, Park wrote a book in which he outlined the first steps toward a more modern golf course architecture, and within six months of the publication of Park’s book, Davis laid out new holes at Newport that were not only a complete departure from his previous work, but also a perfect example of Park’s revolutionary ideas in practice.
Is there a connection between Park’s revolutionary architectural ideas and Davis’s revolutionary architectural practices?
Willie Park, Jr: Golf Royalty
Figure 176 Left to right: Willie Park, Sr (Open champion 1860, 1863, 1866, 1875) and his younger brother Mungo Park (Open Champion 1874).
Willie Park, Jr, was the second of four sons born to four-time Open Champion Willie Park, Sr (1833-1903), and he was the nephew of 1874 Open Champion Mungo Park (1836-1904).
Known as “Young Willie” (as opposed to his father “Auld Willie”), he was shaped virtually from his birth in 1864 by the environment of professional golf, as he later recalled: “I commenced playing golf when I was in skirts and have been playing and working my entire life in this line of work” (Ashville Citizen-Times [North Carolina], 19 November 1916, p. 17).
“My first recollection of golf,” he was fond of relating, was “when my elder brother with a golf stick in his hand ready to swing, told me to gonna out of the way, and as I didn’t move, I had a lick on the chin” (Ashville Citizen-Times [North Carolina], 19 November 1916, p. 17).
Barely out of “skirts,” Young Willie worked in his father’s golf shop, hammering patterned creases into the smooth surface of gutta percha golf balls (so that they would fly truer) and, when he had a moment to spare, practising putting marbles across the brick floor of the shop (https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/Willie-Park-Jr).
Park’s environment certainly nurtured his interest in golf, but he came to believe that more than a golfing milieu was responsible for his lifelong love of the game. Writing in Golf Illustrated in 1922, he endorsed the idea that the “law of heredity” played an important role in producing golfing prowess.
And so, he liked to trace the family’s interest in golf back beyond his father’s generation, claiming that his grandfather James Park (1797-1873), who was a ploughman at a time when the game was confined to the gentry, had nonetheless also played golf.
James Park’s great-great-grandson (Young Willie’s great-nephew), Mungo Park, speculates that James Park probably did not play the “long game” (the “noble” version of the game associated with the gentry), which required expensive, professionally crafted golf clubs, an expensive feathery golf ball, and a well-maintained golf course, but rather played the “short game” (or the “common” game) in which golf was played on a rudimentary short course with crude equipment, such as a roughly fashioned stick used as a club (https://golfclubatlas.com/feature interview/feature-interview-with-mungo-park/).
Young Willie lived long enough to see further evidence supporting his thesis about the role of heredity in transmitting a talent for golf: his daughter Doris (born 1901) became an accomplished fourth-generation Park-family golfer.
Figure 177 Doris Park. Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), 28 June 1923, p. 16.
In 1922, she represented Scotland for the first time in an international match.
After her father’s death in 1925, she would represent Scotland internationally another twelve times, she would represent Great Britain in matches against France three times in the 1930s, and she would represent Great Britain and Ireland in the first Curtis Cup match against the United States in 1932.
In Scotland, she would win the Midlothian Ladies Championship five times in the late 1920s and early 1930s, she would win the East of Scotland Championship in 1933, and she would be runner up in the Scottish Ladies Championship in 1929, 1930, and 1931 before finally winning it in 1936.
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She reached the semi-finals of the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championship in 1929 and 1933 (posting the lowest qualifying score in 1933) and she reached the Championship’s final match in 1937.
In 1950, as Mrs. Aylmer Porter (in her fiftieth year), she shot a 74 in the South-Eastern Women’s Golf Championship at Sunningdale (Daily Telegraph [London], 5 June 1950, p. 3).
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Dad would have been proud of his daughter’s performance on his celebrated course.
Figure 178 Left to right: Old Tom Morris (1821-1908) and Young Tom Morris (1851-1875), circa 1872.
The Park family of Musselburgh and the Morris family of St. Andrews were the two Royal Families of nineteenth-century Scottish golf: between them, they won fifteen of the first twenty-nine Open Championships (including the first one, won by Willie Park, Sr, in 1860). They played in many other tournaments for professionals as well, and they played in dozens of challenge matches against the best players of the day, with Old Tom and Young Tom often playing matches for high stakes against Mungo and Auld Willie.
The latter was certainly a great match play competitor, and “Young Willie” upheld the family’s golfing honour in this regard, acquiring a reputation for virtual invincibility in match play during the 1880s and 1890s (he was said to have published for twenty years in a London newspaper a standing offer to play against any person on any links course for a prize of £100).
And the Park and Morris families were also fierce competitors in business: Old Tom Morris manufactured golf equipment (particularly balls and clubs) and laid out golf courses, and so did Auld Willie, Mungo, and Young Willie, as well as a number of the Parks’ siblings in each generation.
Yet for all the apparent rivalry between the families, there may have been an emotional connection between Old Tom and Young Willie, for just as the former’s son young Tom had witnessed the death of his wife in childbirth in 1875, so had Young Willie witnessed the death of his first wife Mary Taylor Sime in childbirth in 1887. As Young Willie’s great-nephew Mungo Park observes:
It is interesting … to see how many photographs show Old Tom and Willie Park, Junior, standing or sitting together, particularly after the death in childbirth of Willie’s first wife Mary ….
Figure 179 In this 1890s photograph of golfers in front of the St. Andrews clubhouse, Willie Park, Jr, and Old Tom Morris sit side-by-side (in the front row, 4th and 5th, respectively, from the right side).
It is reasonable to speculate that Tom had sympathy for the son of his ‘great rival,’ a feeling that might have been borne of Willie’s golfing ability but also of his tragic loss.
(Mungo Park, https://golfweek.usatoday.com/lists/mungo-park-willie-park-british-open-qa/)
Young Willie certainly had great golfing ability. He would play in his first Open Championship in 1880, when just sixteen years of age. He played in his last in 1910, when he was 46. As a twenty-three year-old, he on the 1887 Open Championship at Prestwick, and then he won it again in 1889 on his home course at Musselburgh. He would finish in the top ten of the Open Championship twelve times.
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In 1898 (as seen in the photograph below), on the last hole of the Open tournament, he missed a short putt that would have earned him an 18 hole playoff against winner Harry Vardon, who thereby won the second of his six Open Championships.
Figure 180 Willie Park misses a short putt on the 18th hole of the 1898 Open to lose by one stroke to Harry Vardon.
In 1919, aged 55, Willie Park, Jr, played in his one and only U.S. Open at the Brae Burn Country Club (in Newton, Massachusetts), crossing swords with some of the greats of the new generation, such as professional Major winners Walter Hagen, Jock Hutchinson, and Jim Barnes, as well as recent amateur winners of the U.S. Open, Francis Ouimet and Chick Evans. American golf writer John G. Anderson was impressed:
Here was a former champion of other days and the Old World, Willie Park, courageous enough in heart to try his fortunes against the cream of the country’s best….
We find him still the wizard with the putter but slowed up on account of the necessity for long carries both on the drive and the second shots.
At that, his total … was better than some of the younger pros.
(John G. Anderson, Sun [New York], 15 June 1919, p. 19)
Figure 181 Willie Park, Jr, circa mid-1880s.
Young Willie had caddied as a boy at Musselburgh, of course, and was said to have skipped meals to find time to play the game for himself.
By age 14, he was apprenticed to his uncle Mungo at the Alnmouth Golf Club (in northeastern England, not far from the Scottish border). Two years later, in 1880, Mungo arranged for the 16-year-old to work as the golf professional and greenkeeper at the Tyneside Golf Club near Newcastle, England.
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In 1881, Young Willie won his first professional tournament at Alnwick.
But in 1884, he returned to Musselburgh, apparently to set up his own business and also to assist with the management of William Park and Sons, perhaps because his father’s health had begun to decline, a development that led two years later to Young Willie’s first golf course design, as he completed a layout that Auld Willie had been forced to abandon because of illness.
Young Willie did this architectural work for free on condition that the new golf club’s members buy balls and clubs from William Park and Son. The twenty-three year-old had discovered the business strategy of the “loss leader.”
An anecdote long told in Musselburgh suggests that Young Willie also recognized early in his business career the potential importance to sales of William Park and Sons golf equipment that a celebrity endorsement might have:
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Park is a legendary figure in Scotland. They tell the story of Park’s meeting with Princess Victoria shortly after he had won the British Open in 1887.
Figure 182 Princess Victoria (1868 1935).
Figure 183 Willie Park, Jr, circa 1890.
The Princess [a daughter of the future King Edward VII, and so a granddaughter of reigning Queen Victoria] … took a keen interest in golf.
It seems that Victoria wanted to play a round at Musselburgh but found that the royal brassie had been mislaid.
Park promptly offered his own brassie as a sacrifice on the altar of duty.
Now Willie would have rather lost an eye than that brassie, since it was the club chiefly responsible for his winning the championship.
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By some happy chance, Willie’s brassie survived a hectic session at the fair hands of Her Royal Highness. Upon completing the round, she stopped in front of Mr. Park, holding the brassie, and kept looking from him to the club without saying anything.
Willie saw his cue.
“Will Your Highness accept that brassie with my respectful compliments?” he inquired, the words almost choking him: “It is my favorite club.”
“In that case,” replied Victoria graciously, “I should not think of taking it from you, though I admit it pleases me.”
“Were it not my favorite club, I would not think of offering it to Your Highness,” responded Park, with an inspiring gallantry worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh.
(Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 5 July 1925, p. 41)
The spread of this anecdote by word of mouth was no doubt worth more than a little “brass” to William Park and Sons: “Please, Mr. Park, will you make me a brassie such as you gave the Princess?”
Park also knew how to capitalize on his own celebrity. After his first Open Championship, “his business developed rapidly and his catch-the-eye trade proclamation – ‘If you want a good club, get a good golfer to make it’ – was known the world over” (Daily Record [Glasgow, Scotland], 25 May 1925, p. 17).
Figure 184 A “bent neck” putter by Willie Park, Jr. Its offset feature became a staple of putter design ever since.
Young Willie’s quick wit in his conversation with Princess Victoria and his catchy business motto are happy instances of an alert mind and an irrepressibly creative imagination that expressed itself in many other ways throughout his career – as, for instance, in his invention of a large array of golf clubs over several decades.
As Douglas Mackenzie notes on his website, Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland:
Ideas flowed from him.
He invented the bulger driver in 1885, a patent lofter in 1889, a patent driving cleek in 1891, a patent compressed driver in 1893, and the patent bent-neck putter in 1894.
He also contributed a golf ball with 56 hexagonal sides which he thought slowed its motion on the green.
Tremendously inventive, he always seemed to have his pulse on what technology might be in demand.
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In 1913, he patented a “stepped-face” iron to impart more backspin to the ball, a thriving area for innovation until such clubs were banned in 1921.
(Douglas Mackenzie, Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland, https://www.antiquegolfscotland.com/antiquegolf/maker.php3?makerid=31)
From his entry into it in 1884, the world of business had appealed to Willie Park, Jr, and he had immediately demonstrated that he had a knack for it.
In fact, by the 1890s, Young Willie’s business concerns would displace playing golf as his primary focus. According to great-nephew Mungo Park,
Willie Jnr … started a separate business from his father [in 1884]; he said that they were not in partnership until 1893.
This explanation may have been invented to avoid liability for Willie Jnr’s mounting debts falling on his father.
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After 1893, the two businesses certainly became one, and Willie Jnr built it up to become a highly successful enterprise, employing 80 people.
(Mungo Park, https://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/feature-interview-with-mungo park/)
In the 1880s and 1890s, golf began to gain popularity in England for the first time, as Park would explain to the New York Times in 1895: “It may not generally be known in this country, but golf is comparatively new in England. The English did not take it up with any great ardor or enthusiasm until sixty-five years ago, but in the past ten years it has grown wonderfully, much faster than it has in Scotland” (New York Times, 28 April 1895, p. 27).
Figure 185 Willie Park, Jr, circa mid- to late 1890s.
Park astutely exploited the opportunities that arose as golf became popular throughout Great Britain and Ireland. He not only opened branches of William Park and Sons in Manchester and London, but he also laid out golf courses for dozens of new golf clubs springing up at this time in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
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Some of these courses were laid out on traditional links land, as in the case of the well-received Gullane No. 2 layout near North Berwick in 1898, but others (as we know) were laid out on inland sites, as at Sunningdale and Huntercombe in England (in 1899 and 1901, respectively) – heathland locations long thought unsuitable for proper golf.
Figure 186 Detail from a photograph of Park's 1920 design pad.
Park’s innovations in golf course design at these inland sites would lead directly to his claim printed at the top left corner of the architectural design pad that he used to depict the golf holes to be laid out on his North American designs between 1916 and 1923: “The ORIGINATOR of the MODERN SYSTEM OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN.”
Park’s claim was endorsed in 1952 by golf architect and historian Sir Guy Campbell in A History of Golf in Britain: calling Park “the doyen of golf architects, as the term is understood today,” he asserts that Sunningdale (Old) and Huntercombe are “two courses of quality and continuing charm that … may be said to mark the springboard of modern practice” (A History of Golf in Britain [London: Cassell and Company, 1952], pp. 92-112).
As I argue in later chapters, Park’s early thinking about inland golf course design was no doubt stimulated in part by his experience of inland golf course design and construction in the United States in the mid-1890s.
It was just a few years before this, as we know, that Americans began to play this new game, which needed golf courses on which to play it, equipment with which to play it, and instruction from golf professionals on how to play it. Recognizing another business opportunity, Park travelled to New York City in the spring of 1895 to open a branch of William Park and Sons, but since the arrival in the United States of the best golfer ever to visit the country prompted great interest in many cities, he prolonged his stay.
During the several months he was in America, he was induced to play exhibition matches and challenge matches against virtually every amateur or professional golfer of any standing then playing golf in the United States. The New York Sun noted: “Park is a hard worker. He visits some golf course daily and is always ready to play the club’s professional for fun or money. So far, he has not been beaten” (Sun [New York], 14 May 1895, p. 5).
Figure 187 Willie Dunn (1864-1952), circa 1894, wearing the medal awarded for victory in the 1894 Open Championship of the United States.
Three matches against Scottish golf professional and golf course architect Willie Dunn, resident golf professional at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club since 1893 and the winner in 1894 of the first open professional championship of the United States, stimulated great interest.
Hundreds of spectators from high society came out to watch their three winner-takes-all matches in June and July of 1895 for significant purses, leading the New York Times to observe:
It is only proper to state that beside the naturally growing interest in golf, the presence of Willie Park in this country has contributed not a little to stimulate enthusiasm in the game.
Those who have been fortunate enough to see him play in some of his recent tournaments have gone away charmed and surprised at his masterly knowledge of the game.
Willie Park has surely aided golf materially in this country, and there are few prominent links in this vicinity which he has not visited and played over.
(New York Times, 20 June 1895, p. 6)
In the end, as we shall see, the only match that Park was said to have lost was his last one, played against Willie Davis, who regarded this victory as his greatest achievement in competitive golf.
Park’s friends attributed his defeat to the fact that this contest was the only one in which he had forgotten to place his fiancé’s photograph “‘for luck’ in the breast pocket of his red golfing coat …. He would say it made him ‘keen to play,’ for she would ‘cut him dead’ unless he made a good record in America” (Philadelphia Record, 5 August 1895, p. 7).
Willie Park married fiancé Margaret Sinclair Inglis (1865-1940) immediately upon his return to Scotland – a fact that American newspapers were happy to report:
Figure 188 Philadelphia Record, 5 August 1895, p. 7.
Willie Park, the professional golf champion, who was in this country for several months this year and made many friends, was married today at the Inveresk Parish Church, Musselburgh, Scotland, to Miss Maggie Inglis, a handsome and attractive young woman, daughter of a widow and heiress to considerable property.
The marriage is an outcome of a love match while both were attending public schools many years ago.
Park recently bought a fine house near Inveresk in which he invested nearly $25,000.
While in this country, he carried a photograph of his betrothed as a mascot, and it is said to have never failed him.
(Akron Beacon Journal [Ohio], 18 September 1895, p. 2)
As we shall see, in addition to playing high-stakes golf matches, Park laid out several golf courses in the American Northeast, especially for wealthy families.
Never one to forgo an opportunity to advertise either his skills or his connections, Park wrote a description of one of his layouts for an American newspaper, observing: “To some extent, it may be a guide to owners of country places who may wish to play golf” (Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5). Although he had no formal schooling beyond the age of fourteen or fifteen, Park probably discovered in writing course descriptions like this one that he had a gift for clear and succinct writing about golf – a discovery that probably helped to give him the confidence to write The Game of Golf right after his visit to the United States. And it may also have been his discovery in the United States of a great appetite for golf instruction, on the one hand, and a great need for proper inland golf course design, on the other, that led him to develop extensive chapters on these topics in The Game of Golf.
But however much Park’s visit to the United States in 1895 might have stimulated him to theorize about the art and science of golf course architecture in The Game of Golf, he had already developed a significant portfolio of course designs in Scotland and England in the 1880s and early 1890s. His American adventure in design was not the beginning of his story as an architect, but rather the next chapter in a story already well begun.
Park and Early 1890's British Cops
Willie Park, Jr, learned to play golf on links courses – first and foremost at Musselburgh – but he had played many dozens of golf courses all over Scotland and England before he first visited the United States in 1895, and so, by the time of his departure for New York in February of that year, he was well aware of how cop bunkers had become popular in both English and Scottish golf course design.
Park himself laid out many courses in Scotland and England between 1886 and 1895.
He is said to have completed his first design in 1886 at Innerleithen in place of his father, who had begun to experience ill health. As mentioned above, the 22-year-old budding entrepreneur apparently laid out the course without charging a fee, arranging instead a contract to supply the new golf club with clubs and balls from William Park & Sons.
Yet Young Willie may have begun design work even earlier at the Tyneside Golf Club, where he was resident professional in 1882 – the year in which it was said that “the green … has been marvellously improved of late by Willie Park, jun.” (Newcastle Journal [England], 27 March 1882, p. 4). The word “improved” is ambiguous: it might refer to improved playing conditions or it might refer to an improved design.
Only when the popularity of the game began to explode in the late 1880s, however, did Park begin to design golf courses in earnest, as well as in great volume!
The list of courses he laid out in Scotland between 1891 and his departure for the United States early in 1895 is substantial:
Innellan (1891), South Queensferry (original course1891, new course 1893), Bathgate (1892), Craiglockhart Hydropathic (1892), Peterhead – Old Course (1892), West Lothian (1892), Jedburgh (1892-93), Baberton (1893), Carlops (1893), Bridge o’ Wier (1894), Royal Burgess Golfing Society (1894), Glencorse (1894-95).
In England, between the 1880s and 1894, there were courses at Newbiggin-by-Sea (originally laid out by Mungo Park in 1884), Berkhamsted (late 1880s), Lincoln (February-March 1891), Harrogate (1892), and Muswell Hill (1894).
In laying out these golf courses, Park sometimes developed artificial hazards and sometimes did not: it all depended on how well the golf course site was endowed with natural hazards.
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At Innerleithen in 1886, for instance, the land was crossed by the River Leithen and small burns, and so Park simply routed the majority of the nine holes across these natural hazards.
Similarly, almost a decade later, his 18-hole course at Glencorse, laid out between December 1894 and February 1895, shows that when an inland site provided sufficient natural hazards, Park still used no artificial hazards at all: “There are no bunkers, but the burn with its fringe of hedges and clump of trees, over which the course crosses ten times, and the woods jutting out at odd corners give plenty hazards, while the undulating nature of the ground is very deceptive for distances” (Mid-Lothian Journal [Scotland], 19 April 1895, p. 6).
At Glencorse in 1894-95, Park also utilized available “natural” hazards: using a railroad as a cross bunker on one hole and an existing footpath as a cross hazard on four other holes.
Like Tom Dunn, Park often routed holes in such a way as to require carries for drives on one shot holes and to require carries on two-shot holes both for drives and for approach shots. His 9-hole Jedburgh design of late 1892 and early 1893, for instance, contains holes reminiscent of Dunn’s earliest inland designs that used ditches, whins, and turf dykes as cross bunkers to be carried by such shots:
The first hole is a somewhat dangerous one … and a good drive, unless kept well to the left, will inevitably land amongst whins in the old road. Clear of this, a strong cleek stroke should carry the ball over a nice hazard in the shape of a ditch and land it on the green….
The second hole can be reached by a good drive providing some whin bushes can be cleared.
The third hole has a formidable hazard in the form of a dyke with a ditch behind, and to overcome this a long drive is necessary….
If the player tops his ball when driving [on the 4th], he is severely punished by landing in long grass. A hazard consisting of a heap of stones is very often another source of trouble….
To reach the [three-shot] sixth hole, it is necessary to cross three valleys….
Several hazards meet the player at the eighth hole. The first of these – a dyke – is easily got over with a feasible drive, and a strong cleek stroke will clear a very dangerous row of whins ….
(Teviotdale Record and Jedburgh Advertise [England], 21 October 1893, p. 3)
By 1893, on inland courses across the south of England, Tom Dunn had used the same kinds of hazards to test first shots, second shots, and third shots according to the same penal principles.
Figure 189 Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 19 October 1893, p. 4.
Park does not seem to have built the dyke at Jedburgh that was used as a hazard on the 3rd and 8th holes. The map of the course suggests, rather, that this dyke was a pre existing feature of the countryside – that is, a “natural” hazard. Marked by the solid line running right across the middle of the map from top to bottom, the dyke was obviously much more extensive than was required for its purpose vis-à-vis the drives on the 3rd and 8th holes. And it went beyond the boundary of the course at the “Public Road” at the top of the map, running through other fields.
In fact, it seems to have marked the boundary between the smaller and larger fields or “enclosures” that had been leased by the Club from two local landowners.
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It may be that Park was responsible for the “ditch behind” the dyke on the 3rd hole – effectively turning this part of the dyke into a cop bunker.
On other golf grounds that had few natural hazards, Park certainly built his own turf dykes from scratch, as on the 9-hole course that he designed for the Queensferry Golf Club of South Queensferry. Having laid out the original course for the club in November of 1891, Park was asked to lay out a new course at the beginning of 1893:
The new course is situated on the rising ground to the south of the town ….
The course, which was laid out some time ago by Willie Park of Musselburgh, is of an undulating nature ….
There are few natural hazards, but small mounds or turf dykes have been made here and there which will doubtless on many occasions prove pitfalls for the erratic player.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland] 4 May 1893, p. 4).
Figure 190 Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 31 May 1893, p. 4).
The course map seen to the left shows that these turf dykes were placed as impediments to approach shots on six of the nine holes (the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th).
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Although it is uncertain whether Park had played at Hoylake by 1895, he had certainly become familiar with the use of cops at Royal Lytham and St. Annes as well as on certain courses designed by Tom Dunn.
For instance, Park played in the first professional tournament at Royal Lytham and St. Annes in November of 1890.
Figure 191 A modified version of the sketch above of golfers on the first tee facing the first cop at Royal Lytham and St Annes in 1890. Original image from Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News [London], May 1890, in Nickson, p. 15.
Ten professional golfers were invited to play in the tournament for “prizes, amounting altogether to £53 …, subscribed for by members of the club” (Preston Herald [England], 10 November 1890, p. 7).
All ten accepted the invitation, but not everyone coped well with the cops – especially cop confronting golfers on the 1st tee, seen to the left.
Old Tom Morris and Willie Park, Jr, both travelled overnight to reach the St Annes train station just before the 9:45 a.m. tee time. They stepped immediately from the station, right beside the golf course, onto the first tee.
Figure 192 Willie Campbell, circa 1890
Poor Willie Campbell drove his first shot directly into the cop on the 1st hole: “Campbell had exceedingly hard [times] in getting behind the turf dyke from a very long shot from the tee, and he took 7 for an ordinary 4. He never got the better of this mishap” (Preston Herald [England], 15 November 1890, p. 7). Campbell thus took 7 on this hole, whereas his fellow competitors made 3, 4, or 5.
Other cops at Royal Lytham and St. Annes had already become so notorious as to have been christened with Biblical names – such as “Jordan,” a cop fronted by a ditch filled with water.
Figure 193 Hugh Kirkaldy (1868-1897), circa 1890.
Crossing “Jordan was the undoing of another highly fancied competitor, Hugh Kirkaldy, who would win the Open Championship several months later: “Hugh Kirkcaldy spoiled an otherwise good score by getting into ‘Jordan’ and losing three strokes thereby. The bunker had water, out of which Kirkcaldy, instead of lifting and losing a stroke, preferred to play it” (Preston Herald [England], 15 November 1890, p. 5).
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Park finished 7th. The Scotsman noted that he “was at a disadvantage” in relation to many of the other competitors:
“Park, after travelling all night, just arrived in time to go off the first tee and had never seen the ground over which he was playing” (The Scotsman [Scotland], 10 November 1890, p. 5).
Figure 194 Willie Fernie, circa 1890.
Still, since Willie Fernie won the tournament with scores of 77 and 78 (his 77 tying club pro George Lowe’s course record), a local newspaper observed that Park’s first round “82 was, therefore, under the circumstances, a very meritorious performance” (Preston Herald [England], 15 November 1890, p. 7).
No disastrous encounters with cops were reported for Park, but he will have noted the sad fate of others in confronting the six-foot-high cops that featured on all 18 holes.
Figure 195 Golf professionals invited to play at Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf club in November of 1890. Front row, left to right: Willie Park, Jr, Andrew Kirkcaldy, Old Tom Morris, Willie Fernie, Archie Simpson. Back row, left to right: George Lowe, Alex Herd, Jack Morris, Willie Campbell, Hugh Kirkcaldy.
Before Willie Park came to the United States for the first time, he also knew very well Tom Dunn’s work on inland golf layouts. In May of 1894, for instance, he played a high-profile professional competition on the recently laid-out Tom Dunn course at Royal Worlington and Newmarket Golf Club (founded in May 1893).
This layout was a perfect example of Dunn’s use of cop bunkers according to his penal design principles.
Dunn planned the 4,290-yard 18-hole layout in the spring of 1893, concluding his report on the property with the following observation: “On the whole, I have no hesitation in saying that when the work of putting the course in order is completed, most enjoyable links will be the result” (quoted in Golf [London], 3 November 1893, p. 114).
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The full 18-hole course took several years to complete and soon proved unviable because certain areas were too wet. But the nine-hole course (which endures to this day) was well received.
After an exhibition match played on it against golf professional Jack White in October of 1894, reigning Open Champion J.H. Taylor declared “that the Worlington Links were the best, or one of the best, inland links that he had ever played upon” (Bury and Norwich Post [England], 16 October 1894, p. 8).
Park and a number of other golf professionals said the same thing when they played the course a few months before:
Scotch Players in East Anglia
In connection with the Worlington and Newmarket Golf Club, a meeting took place on Saturday which possessed great interest not only for local but also for Scotch exponents of the game, of whom the latter were continuously informed by telegraph of the progress of events.
Figure 196 Douglas Rolland (1861-1914), circa 1895.
As the result of a challenge issued some time ago, we understand, a foursome match (36 holes, for a purse of £20), was played between four well-known professionals from beyond the Tweed – Douglas Rolland, Limpsfield, Jack White, North Berwick, against Willie Park, jun., Musselburgh, and Hugh Kirkcaldy, St. Andrews….
The competitors were at the scene of contest on Friday [perhaps playing practice rounds] ….
On Saturday morning, unfortunately, when a start was made at half-past ten o’clock, the weather was about as bad as could well be imagined.
Rain fell in torrents and the wind blew hard from a cold quarter….
Rolland and White …. won the match at the 31st hole, by six up and five to play ….
The features of the game were the extraordinary drives made by Rolland and Park’s excellent cleek shots.
The distinguished golfing visitors expressed great satisfaction with the green [i.e. the golf course], stating that it was one of the best inland links upon which they had ever played.
(East Anglian Daily Times [England], 14 May 1894, p. 3)
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Another report added an interesting detail: “The professionals had but one word to say for it, that it was more like links by the sea than any other inland course within their knowledge” (Golf [London], 25 May 1894, p. 194).
And there was a report of yet another detail: “The professionals were comparing it to Luffness and Musselburgh, and were high in their commendation of the greens, which are wide, good, level and true” (Bury Free Press [England], 19 May 1894, p. 8). Although attributed to the four golf professionals in general, the observation above may have been expressed introduced by Park himself: after all, Musselburgh was Park’s home course, and Luffness was just ten miles up the road.
Figure 197 An unidentified putting green on the 9-hole course of the Worlington Golf Club circa 1907. A cop bunker seems to run horizontally across the middle of the photograph. Bury and Norwich Post [England], 1 November 1907, p. 7.
Park and his three fellow golf professionals played a nine-hole course comprising neither the first nine holes nor the second nine holes, but rather a selection of the completed holes called “The Short Course” – which remains essentially the course in play today.
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In November of 1893, a description of “The Short Course” by the Golf [London] reviewer highlighted what we recognize to be Dunn’s distinctive cop bunkers:
The bunkers deserve a word to themselves, for they are certainly the best we have seen on an inland course, with plenty of sand and no stones.
Most of them are surmounted with high mounds, which will catch many a promising “skimmer,” and once in, it is hard to get out in the direction of the hole, as they [the sand-filled trenches] are narrower and more unkind, so to speak, than natural bunkers, little room being left to extricate oneself without losing the distance.
(Golf [London], vol 7 no 164 [3 November 1893], p. 114) The 1895 map below shows much of “The Short Course” that Park played in May of 1894.
The 1895 routing seems to have been the same as the 1894 routing, but some of the 1895 holes were slightly longer or shorter than they were in May of 1894, such as the 1st hole, which was a three-shot hole in 1895 but was a two-shot hole when Park played it in 1894). The seven cop bunkers have been highlighted in purple.
Figure 198 Map of Royal Worlington and Newmarket Golf Club, circa 1895.
The cop bunker in front of the green on the long 8th hole (the cop is marked in purple above, beside a shallow sand bunker marked in yellow) was an instance of Dunn’s notorious “mountainous” cops: “The drive to the eighth hole [i.e. the approach to the 8th green] is over the serpentine ditch, to the right of a big bunker, called, from its numerous peaks, the Himalayas” (Golf [London], vol 7 no 164 [3 November 1893], p. 115).
Dunn had already built a cop bunker called “The Himalayas” at Tooting Bec.
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And so, when Park set out for the United States at the end of February 1895, he knew well the general tenets of Dunn’s penal architectural style, as well as at least one example of his cop bunkers with mountainous profiles; he knew well the cop bunkers at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, which were six feet high, topped with fences, and fronted (and sometimes also backed) with sand- or water-filled ditches; and, as we know from study of Park’s own designs of the early 1890s, he accepted the utility of turf dykes and cop bunkers for inland golf course design.
And so, it is no surprise to learn that when Park arrived in the United States in March of 1895, he was pleased to find effective penal design on a number of existing golf courses and that he proceeded to employ penal architectural principles in most of his own layouts during his visit.
There were no signs yet of his cop out.
Willie Park Comes to America in 1895
Willie Park says that he told no one in New York that he was coming to America in 1895:
Figure 199 Robert Lockhart (1847-1904).
Willie declared that nobody knew he was coming, but on his arrival at New York he looked up a Mr. Lockhart, an old Dunfermline man, who has two sons in Loretto School, Musselburgh, and who was a customer of his own, having had several sets of clubs sent through his boys.
Mr. Lockhart enjoyed the distinction of having introduced golf into America.
Being a prominent member of the St. Andrew’s Club, Yonkers, New York, Mr. Lockhart introduced Willie to his fellow members, who made him very welcome and gave him the use of the clubhouse.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 31 July 1895, p. 2)
Whether or not Park told anyone in America that he was planning to visit the country, he was not shy about talking of his plans to people in Scotland and England. Note the following announcement in Golf (London) in mid-February:
Golfers will be interested to hear that Willie Park, jun, will sail from Liverpool by the S.S. Adriatic on the 20th inst. for New York.
We believe it is his intention to open a shop in New York for the sale of golf clubs and balls in readiness for the opening of the American season; and, looking at the immense impetus which has been given within the past two years to golf in the States, no one can question Park’s foresight and enterprise.
If American golfers are wise, they will try and induce Willie to play a few matches while he is among them, for his style of play, like that of his father, approaches the ideal in ease, grace, and finish at all points of the game.
Everyone who knows Willie Park will wish him cordial success in his new undertaking.
(Golf [London], vol 240 no 9 [15 February 1895], p. 396)
We can see that the American devotees of the Royal and Ancient Game who subscribed to Golf (London) would have known that Park was coming. And there were many such subscribers – Willie Davis, as we know, being one of them.
And at least one person in North America seems to have been told directly by Park himself of his plans to visit.
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Before sailing for New York, Park was in Manchester opening a new branch of William Park & Sons (after having recently opened another branch in London), and while he was in Manchester, a newspaper reported that he and Willie Campbell, the golf professional at the Country Club of Brookline, had already made informal plans to play a match against each other in America (Manchester Courrier, 26 February 1895, p. 7). Park and Campbell had known each other for many years, competing fiercely against each other in Open Championships and high-stakes challenge matches. As we know, they were also among the ten golf professionals invited to play in the tournament at Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club in November of 1890.
As Golf (London) editor Robertson indicated he would, Willie Park set out for New York on February 20th. He arrived on March 1st, and his home base for many weeks became the clubhouse of the St. Andrew’s Golf Club (seen below).
Figure 200 Seven members of their St. Andrews Golf Club appear on the veranda of their new clubhouse on the Odell farm in Yonkers New York. Circa summer of 1894. James P. Lee, Golf in America: A Practical Manual (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1895), p. ii.
From the St. Andrews clubhouse, Park commuted into the city of New York to set up his store at 118 West 23rd Street. In the late nineteenth century, this address placed Park’s store within New York’s theatre district along West 23rd Street.
In fact, the store was across the street from what was still known as Koster & Bial’s Concert Hall at the corner of West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue (although Koster & Bial had moved to a new
Figure 201 Koster & Bial Concert Hall, 1892. Item held by the New York Public Library.
Indeed, Park pointed to their famous concert hall one day when, in conversation with New York Sun golf writer H.L. Fitzpatrick, he compared a golf hole called “The Alps” in America with a hole called “The Alps” in Britian, for the hole by that name at the Tuxedo Golf Club had not awed him:
Tuxedo’s famous hazard, the “Alps,” does not require a Napoleon to conquer it, according to Willie Park, but he speaks with the assurance of a champion.
“We would not give it that name on our side,” said he, “although it’s a neat bit of hill. Why, it is no higher than that” – here, Park pointed to the third tory of the old Koster & Bial hall, across the way from his store.
“Now, there’s a hazard on the north of England called the ‘Alps,’ higher than the eaves of that hall, with a nasty sand bunker on the other side. The Tuxedo drive is a short one compared with it.”
(Sun [New York], 19 May 1895, p. 17)
In April, Park would install a business manager in this store: his Musselburgh friend Peter S. Blair (a printer by trade, and an accomplished amateur golfer at Musselburgh). Park’s younger brother Mungo would live here in 1897 as business manager until the discontinuance of the business at the beginning of 1898.
The reason for Park’s trip to the United States was to determine whether the country’s interest in the game of golf was real, substantial, and likely to be enduring – an entrepreneur’s curiosity, essentially, about whether it would be worthwhile to open a branch of his company in New York.
But Park was also a golfer (still one of the best in the world) and also a golf course architect, and so he was also curious about the quality of American golfers and the nature of their golf courses.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that that immediately after being shown his room in the St. Andrew’s clubhouse, Park’s first order of business, so to speak, was to inspect the St. Andrews golf course: “On arriving at the clubhouse of St. Andrew’s, he said, the first thing he asked was to be allowed to see the green [that is, the golf course] and judge of the turf” (Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 31 July 1895, p. 2).
Because “for the first two months he busied himself with getting his club-making business set on foot,” Park played golf at St. Andrews in relative anonymity until the end of April – when a newspaper reported that he was present in the United States and “keeping his hand in by playing every week at the St. Andrew’s Club, Yonkers, and on the Staten Island links, and he has also played on the Shinnecock Hills golf links” (Musselburgh News [Edinburgh], 2 August 1895, p. 3; New York Times, 28 April 1895, p. 27).
As he explained to the Musselburgh News, it was around this time that “the New York paper men found him out, and several had interviews with him” (Musselburgh News [Scotland], 2 August 1895, p. 3). The New York Times was the first to do so, publishing its interview with him at the end of April. After that, anonymity was no longer possible: “His first intention was to get [business] matters arranged and be back within three months, but it appears he was lionised by golfing enthusiasts ‘over there’ and had to stay for a much longer time” (Musselburgh News [Scotland], 2 August 1895, p. 3).
Park became a St. Andrew’s man, wearing the club jacket during the match against Willie Campbell that had been informally arranged while Park was still in Britain:
He played in a red coat with a blue collar, exactly like the St. Andrew’s uniform, but for the embroidered motto – “Far and Sure” – on the right lapel.
“That [motto] will suit you, Park, but would not look well on us,” said Mr. Tallmadge, and there was a laugh from the group of red-coated St. Andrew’s men about the Champion.
(Golf, 14 June 1895, p. 266)
It having become well-known that present on American soil was a two-time Open Champion, golf clubs began to arrange challenge matches between Park and the best of the golf professionals then working in the United States. These matches stimulated great interest and were long remembered as having popularized the game.
And another consequence of word spreading that the great Willie Park was in town was that he was asked to provide golf lessons for wealthy American families:
While enjoying the hospitality of the St. Andrew’s Club, he was telegraphed for by Mr. J.J. Astor, the millionaire, and in response to the wire, he went to the Astor’s home at Rhinecliffe [New York].
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Here he stayed for a week during which he enjoyed hospitality as an American and a millionaire knows how to offer it.
During the stay, he gave lessons in the game to Mr. and Mrs. Astor, playing over their private course.
He was also introduced to Dr. Webb, whose wife is a Vanderbilt. On the doctor’s invitation, he stayed three days at the family residence at Shelbourne [Vermont], which is some 200 miles from New York. During this visit, also, he gave lessons in the game and found the doctor, Mrs. Webb, and her daughter apt pupils.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2)
Park also redesigned the Astor’s existing nine-hole course and he designed nine new holes to be added to the existing nine-hole course that Willie Davis had laid out for the Webbs the year before.
Park Falls in Love with a Penal St Andrews Course
Park said that once he was installed in the clubhouse of the St Andrews Golf Club at Yonkers, the first thing he did was to inspect the golf course. He would play it regularly for two months and come to admire the layout – the New York Times reporting at the end of April: “He considers the St. Andrew’s links an excellent golf course” (New York Times, 28 April 1895, p. 27).
As we know, Park brought with him from the Old Country a thorough familiarity with the principles of penal golf course architecture, to which he personally subscribed. And like Tom Dunn, to impose penalties on golfers who played bad shots, he deployed artificial hazards, such as turf dykes and cop bunkers (on both inland and links golf courses), as necessary. At St. Andrews, he recognized the proper application of penal principles and the proper deployment of artificial hazards:
On arriving at the clubhouse of St. Andrew’s, he said, the first thing he asked was to be allowed to see the green [that is, the golf course] and judge of the turf.
He found the putting greens excellent – something similar in turf to what they had in Musselburgh.
The soil was not so sandy, being more clay.
The greens were well kept and, in his opinion, could challenge comparison with many Scottish courses, and certainly with the best inland courses in Britain.
A great deal of money had been spent on getting the greens to the point of excellence and this had been obtained after two years’ hard work and unremitting attention.
Artificial bunkers had been formed on the greens [that is, fairways] with such good judgment that the circuit of the greens was made hazardous enough to suit the most exacting “sport.”
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 31 July 1895, p. 2)
Park was surprised to find other golf courses laid out by America’s big clubs to be equally as well designed and maintained as that of the St. Andrews club. Just before he left New York to visit Newport, Park shared his observations to this effect with the New York Times:
The excellence of some of the golf courses has surprised me, as they have been laid out so recently.
The links at Shinnecock, Morristown, St. Andrews, Brookline, Manchester, and Staten Island are excellent golf courses, of which no one ever need to be ashamed, but in two or three years these will be vastly improved.
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(New York Times, 14 July 1895, p. 19)
After playing 54 holes in competition against Davis on the latter’s nine-hole Newport course, Park added it to his list of excellent American courses, complimenting it in similar terms:
Willie Park, the ex-champion of Great Britain, who visited and played over the [Newport] links for the first time last [Tuesday and] Wednesday, was very well pleased with the course, although in time it will be far better than it is now.
“It is an excellent course,” he said, “but does not possess so many elements of a seaside course as the links at Shinnecock. It is more in the nature of an inland one, the soil in many places being very clayey, but with a top dressing of sand it would be greatly improved. The hazards are well arranged and very correctly placed. The distances of the holes are also excellent, and putting greens and tees are in the very best condition.”
(Sun [New York], 22 July 1895, p. 7)
Park celebrates both Davis’s Newport layout and the St. Andrews layout for being in accord with the principles of penal golf course architecture.
Regarding the St. Andrews course, the “two years’ hard work and unremitting attention” that Park mentions refers to the years 1894 and 1895, for the nine-hole course that he played at St. Andrews had been laid out in the spring of 1894, when the Club moved to this new site on the old Odell farm at Grey Point.
The designer of the 1894 nine-hole course is unknown.
It is possible that members of the Club may have designed it themselves, for we learn that when the Club acquired land for a new course late in 1895, it was confident that members would be able to lay out this new course themselves: “The new links of the St. Andrew’s Club at Mount Hope will be laid out by a committee of the members. It is believed that there is talent enough among the players to attain good results without the aid of a professional as adviser” (Sun [New York], 27 January 1896, p. 8).
And note also that in December of 1893, two of these “talented” Club members laid out a course at Princeton:
A couple of weeks ago, two Yonkers golf players, Mr. John C. Ten Eyck and Dr. Henry Moffat, went out to Princeton and laid out links near the new Princeton Inn.
The New York papers now speak of it as the rival of Lakewood and mention the golf links as an especial attraction.
(Herald Statesman [New York], 11 January 1894, p. 1)
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Eight of the nine holes of the 1894 St. Andrews layout were routed up hill and down hill across the property’s “natural” hazards: stone fences and roads. And the hazards were placed in positions to require carries by drives and/or approach shots. On the 2nd hole, however, there was no natural hazard for the drive to carry, and on the 7th hole, there was no hazard for the approach shot to carry. So, on these two holes, artificial hazards were created.
The artificial hazards in question are marked as “BUNKER” and “DIRT WALL BUNKER” on the map below, which illustrates the layout that Park played in 1895.
Figure 202 Sun (New York), 16 June 1895, p. 16. The “Old Road “crossed with the 1st drive was a “sunken road.”
The artificial bunkers raised on the 2nd and 7th holes seem to have been cop bunkers. The “artificial hazard” on the 2nd hole was described in October of 1894 as “a high turf bank with a sunken ditch” (Sun (New York], 13 October 1894, p. 5). The ditch was presumably filled with sand, as was the case with the 8th bunker – “an earth bank, faced by a sand bunker” (Golf [London], vol 10 no 257 [14 June 1895], p. 266).
These are the “artificial bunkers” that Park said were “formed … with such good judgment that the circuit of the greens is made hazardous enough to suit the most exacting sport.”
Figure 203 Standing: Samuel Tucker (born circa 1875), September 1895.
These earth banks faced by sand bunkers seem to have been built in the now-familiar Dunn-family style, which should be no surprise, for the golf professional hired by the St. Andrews Golf Club at the beginning of September 1894 was Samuel Tucker – the nephew of Willie Dunn who had come to Shinnecock Hills in the spring of 1894 to work as his uncle’s assistant.
My guess is that Tucker built these bunkers in anticipation of the U.S. Amateur Championship competition that the St. Andrews Golf Club had arranged for October of 1894.
With his brother William (who had served as his uncle Willie’s assistant at Biarritz), Samuel Tucker would soon form the company Tucker Brothers to lay out golf courses in the United States.
They became renowned as grass and turf specialists. William would become a member of the American Society of Golf Course
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Architects, claiming that he had developed more than 120 courses before his death in 1954. Samuel volunteered to serve in the Boer War (1899-1902), then moved to Australia and took up golf again (Sun [New York], 1 March 1908, p. 26).
Park's Generally Penal Designs in America
Both before and after setting up his New York store and installing his Musselburgh friend (Peter Blair) as manager, Park frequently emerged from the St Andrews clubhouse to play high-profile, high-stakes golf matches against Willie Campbell, Joe Lloyd, Willie Dunn, Willie Norton, and Willie Davis, on the one hand, and to design at least seven golf courses, on the other.
His first design work seems to have begun while he was still settling in at St. Andrews, for it was in March of 1895 that Augustus T. Gillender, the owner of land where he was developing the Knollwood Country Club, sent his civil engineer, Lawrence E. Van Etten, several miles up the road to St. Andrews Golf Club to learn from Park the nature of this new game so that Gillender could determine whether it should be a sport offered at his Country Club:
Figure 204 Lawrence E. Van Etten (1865 1951). New York Times, 22 March 1896, p. 25.
[Gillender] made a date for Mr. Van Etten to drop down to St. Andrews Golf Club, a few miles below Elmsford, there to meet and play a round with the great Willie Park, then British golf champion.
The engineer was to report back to the client, A.T. Gillender, who wanted to know what this game of “golf” was all about and what the engineer thought of it.
The report was made on how golf was played.
In his [Van Etten’s] opinion, it was bound to increase rapidly in America, not only because of the fascination of making the golf ball behave properly, but because of the outdoor exercise for young and old alike….
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The order came to build the golf course.
And so emerged the Knollwood Country Club complete with 18-holes and clubhouse and of which our engineer was a member for years.
(Standard-Star, 13 June 1950, p. 18)
Van Etten (1865-1951) graduated from Princeton University with degrees in civil engineering and law, but he abandoned legal practice in the mid-1880s for engineering, working on railroad infrastructure, sewers, and large subdivisions in several states. These landscaping projects took him to Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Florida, and California before he decided to set up his own business in New York in the 1890s.
Figure 205 Lawrence E. Van Etten, probably 1896.
Van Etten was a natural athlete (he played varsity baseball at Princeton, for instance, and afterwards became one of the leading amateur baseball players in New York State), but “Van Etten never handled a golf club before last Spring [1895] when Willie Park gave him a few lessons” (New York Times, 22 March 1896, p. 25).
Those lessons ignited a passion for golf in Van Etten, who would become the first champion of the Knollwood Country Club at the end of its first season in 1895.
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And he would later design golf courses for the Deal Golf and Country Club (18 holes, New Jersey, 1898), Pelham Country Club (18 holes, New York, 1899), Wykagyl Country Club (18 holes, New York, 1904-05), and Province Lake Golf Course (9 holes, Maine, 1918).
He also designed a private golf course on the New Jersey estate of James B. Duke.
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Van Etten started work on the Knollwood golf course property early in 1895, perhaps even before he met Park.
On 11 March 1895, under one of the stumps being removed, Van Etten’s crew discovered a hoard of farthings and shillings dating from the early 1700s, leading to the following newspaper item about their work:
Up in Elmsford, there is a club which indulges in all sorts of sports and pastimes.
Naturally, it had to have golf, so it secured the use of Knollwood Parks in which to have its links, and engaged L.E. Van Etten, a civil engineer of New Rochelle, to lay them out.
For some time past, a force of men has been at work under his supervision cutting down trees and putting the land in proper shape.
(Sun [New York], 13 March 1895, p. 7)
That this “force of men has been at work” “for some time past” as of this March 13th report perhaps suggests that Van Etten had been directing this crew’s tree-clearing work since before March – that is before Park arrived in the United States.
It would seem, however, that the work Van Etten did on the Knollwood property before meeting and consulting with Park at the beginning of March involved rudimentary preparation for laying out a golf course. Absolutely new to the game, Van Etten must have relied almost entirely on Park for directions regarding the routing of holes and the location of tees and greens.
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In fact, most newspaper reports attribute responsibility for the layout to Park without mentioning Van Etten at all.
A newspaper report in May of 1895 refers to Park’s work on the course earlier that spring: “Willie Park, Jr., the Scotch ex-professional champion, who is now in this country, visited the links a few weeks ago and assisted in laying them out, and he was extremely pleased with the locality and the lay of the ground for golfing purposes” (New York Times, 19 May 1895, p. 6).
The following year, the New York Sun reported that “Willie Park had much to do with the laying out of the links originally” (Sun [New York], 2 February 1896, p. 30).
In the spring of 1896, the New York Times declared that the course was Park’s: “This course was no outgrowth from a smaller one but was originally laid out on the present extensive plan by Willie Park, the ex-champion of Scotland and England” (New York Times, 22 March 1896, p. 25).
By November of 1895, however, Club members had become “ambitious for more ground to cover”: that is, they wanted the course made longer (New York Tribune, 17 November 1895, p. 24). Acceding to these wishes, the Green Committee announced that by the spring of 1896, “all the shorter holes will have been lengthened and new difficulties placed in the way of such as seem too easy to approach” (New York Tribune, 17 November 1895, p. 24). Most of the holes that were lengthened seem simply to have been made longer by the construction of new tee boxes.
The first four holes, however, were significantly changed. The old first hole southwest of the clubhouse was eliminated (a new long fourth hole consumed the old short first hole) and a new f irst hole was created about 400 yards directly to the north. There was an additional hole added in this part of the property, making a complement of five holes in this area before joining up with what had been Park’s 5th hole (which thus became the 6th). Two short holes on the back nine (the 15th and 16th) were combined to make a longer 16th hole.
And so, the 1896 holes from 6 to 18 remained Park’s original 1895 holes from 5 to 18 (with 15 and 16 combined as a new 16). In effect, about 70% of the redesigned course preserved Park’s original routing.
Newspaper accounts of this new longer course at the beginning of 1896 are extensive – including publication of map below in February.
Figure 206 Sun (New York), 2 February 1896, p. 30. Stone-wall cross bunkers have been highlighted in yellow. Other cross bunkers (comprising cop bunkers and earth dykes) are highlighted in purple.
Although less information is available about Park’s 1895 design, reports of play on the course during the first season provide a number of details confirming that Park deployed principles of penal design in laying out his holes.
As the course map shows, there were streams, stone walls, and bunkers to be crossed: “holes up to the seventh [were] all troublesome holes, with numerous natural hazards, ditches, stone walls, and two or three streams” (New York Times, 29 November 1895, p. 10). And the map also shows that roads were used as hazards.
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On the 1st hole, for instance, a road with “a long border flower bed” (probably Knollwood Road) served as a cross bunker. The approach shot was made even more difficult by other “old flower beds, high grass, and everything miserable up to the hole” (New York Times, 3 November 1895, p. 6; 29 November 1895, p. 10). The requirement that the approach over these impediments not go long was enforced by “the declivity beyond the putting green” (New York Times, 3 November 1895, p. 6). Similarly, the drive to the one-shot 11th hole was “down a ledge and across the road,” and a road also figured on the 15th hole, the ideal drive “clearing a wide road about 120 yards distant” (New York Times, 29 November 1895, p. 10).
Stone walls and ditches were frequently deployed as hazards. A stone wall had to be crossed on the original 2nd hole, for instance, and there was also a stone wall to be crossed at about 100 yards on the 6th hole. Golfers were confronted with a ditch on the original 3rd hole. And ditches were omnipresent on low parts of the property, where Van Etten presumably deployed his engineering skills: “little ditches … serve as drains in the low part of the grounds, making excellent but very troublesome hazards as well” (New York Times, 3 November 1895, p. 6).
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Note that on golf courses at this time, crude stone walls were sometimes purpose built as hazards.
Figure 207 An enlarged detail from a photograph showing the 6th hole at Morris County Golf Club, Morristown, New jersey. Harper's Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 (15 June 1895), p. 571. This “stone wall bunker” was described by Harper’s Weekly as an “artificial hazard.” Note that far from marking the boundary of a field, this stone wall does nor even cross the entire width of the fairway.
Such was the case at Morristown when, in the spring of 1894, what was called the “Stone Wall Bunker” (seen to the left) was cobbled together as a cross bunker on the 6th hole of the seven-hole course of the Morris County Golf Club.
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The way the stone walls are drawn on the Knollwood course map above suggests that they were built on the model of the Morristown “stone wall bunker” to serve as what Harper’s Weekly called an “artificial hazard” (Harper's Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [15 June 1895], p. 571).
On the one hand, the stone walls are shown on the map not as enclosing fields but rather as running merely from one side of a fairway to the other (in the same way earth bank bunkers are drawn on the map). On the other hand, the stone walls seem too perfectly located precisely where penal architecture requires them (especially on the 6th and 7th holes) for them to have been found in these locations “naturally.”
At Knollwood, Park also used cop bunkers. For instance, on the 8th hole (at 317 yards, “the longest hole on the course”) there were “two series of overlapping bunkers” (New York Times, 3 November 1895, p. 6). With the addition of another hole on the front nine at the beginning of 1896, this hole became the 9th hole, but its length and its hazards apparently remained the same:
The ninth hole is 317 yards, through an almost level meadow.
At two places on this field, four of the finest bunkers to be found in any golf course are erected. They are double bunkers, serving also for the tenth and eleventh holes.
Between each set of two bunkers is a passageway, the bunkers overlapping so that it is impossible in playing either for the ninth, tenth, or eleventh holes to go around them.
They are about 8 feet in height from the bottom of the ditch and smoothly sodded.
Each pair of bunkers is about 300 feet in length.
(New York Times, 22 March 1896, p. 3)
We recognize cop bunkers of the Dunn family style.
Figure 208 John Singer Sargent portrait of Mrs. Hamilton McKown Twombly, 1890.
Whereas Augustus Gillender had sent engineer Van Etten to St. Andrews Golf Club to meet Park and learn about the game of golf, Mrs. Hamilton McKown Twombly – alias Florence Adele Vanderbilt (1854-1952) – already knew about the game (her brothers Cornelius and William were founding members of the Newport Golf Club in January of 1893).
According to R.E. Cherrill, she had and her husband had Willie Dunn lay out a course for them in 1893, a year before the Morris County Golf Club was formed (Letter to the editor, Golf [London], 10 November 1893], p. 134).
She had been playing on the 7-hole Morristown course since June of 1894, but she wanted a better golf course, and she also wanted personal lessons, so she and her husband invited Willie Park to visit the Twombly home.
Park would instruct Mr. and Mrs. Twombly in the art of the golf swing and he would expand the golf course to 18 holes by the end of April.
The Morris County Golf Club had been formed early in 1894 and “Mrs. Twombly … was the leading spirit in forming the club” (Sunday Oregonian [Portland, Oregon], 13 October 1895, p. 15). Its original course was laid out in the spring. Scheduled to open for play on Decoration Day (today known as Memorial Day), the 7-hole course was not officially opened until June.
This club was organized by women for women: “Mrs. H. McK. Twombly … Mrs. F.L. Hopkins … Mrs. Marmaduke Tilden … Miss Howland (et. al.] … saw the trend of the times and they concluded that if Morristown was to keep up with the social customs of the day, the colony should have a golf club” (Madison Eagle, 8 June 1894, p. 3). Miss Nina Howland became president and Mrs. Hamilton McKown Twombly became vice-president.
Figure 209 Alexandr Harvey Tiers (1858 1910). New York Times, 29 March 1896, p. 25.
Alexander H. Tiers – a stock broker (and business associate of Hamilton McKown Twombly) who was Chairman of the 1894 Green Committee – appears to have been in charge of laying out the course: “Mr. Tiers said he would get the grounds if Mrs. Twombly and Miss Howland would do the organizing…. Mr. Tiers, … with Mr. Twombly and Mr. Caulfield, the owner of the property, has superintended the building of the clubhouse and the laying out of the grounds” (Madison Eagle [New Jersey], 8 June 1894, p. 3).
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Tiers, an amateur golfer relatively new to the game, was probably helped in designing and refining the layout during the course of the inaugural season by at least two golf professionals.
In mid-June, the Club’s first golf professional was hired: “The members have been fortunate in securing the services of a genuine Scotchman who understands every detail of the game and is an expert player himself. He is James Campbell and has been at the club about two weeks” (New York Times, 4 July 1894, p. 3).
Campbell was also a course designer, laying out a course the following year at Manchester-in the-Mountains, Vermont: “Golf was introduced at Manchester in 1895 by James Campbell, an old Scotch golfer, who laid out a nine-hole course” (Golf [New York], vol 14 no 5 [May 1904], p. 293).
Campbell did not stay at the club for the whole 1894 season.
By the fall, there was another golf expert on the scene: “one of the most interested watchers of the [Club’s] tournament [in the fall of 1894] was the popular instructor and coach of the club, Arthur Webster, a veteran golfer himself” (New York Times, 20 October 1894, p. 7). He was described as “a Scotchman … [who] has played for years on some of the finest links both in Scotland and England” (New York Times, 26 October 1894, p. 7).
His teaching abilities were particularly celebrated: “Arthur Webster is the ‘coacher’ for the club and it is largely owing to his efforts that the women have become so proficient” (New-York Tribune, 20 October 1894, p. 4). But he also designed golf courses: in October of 1894, Webster “laid out” and “superintended” work on the links of the Golf Club of Glen Ridge, New Jersey (New York Times, 26 October 1894, p. 7).
Figure 210 The "Punch Bowl." Charles A. Kip, The Morris County Golf Club Championship Scrap Book (Morristown, New Jersey: privately published, 1898), p 12.
The first four holes of the original 7 hole Morristown golf course were laid out around and across a large, natural depression that had been known since colonial times as the “Punch Bowl,” shown to the left (a nearby road was named Punch Bowl Road).
The last three holes were laid out around the side and back of a newly constructed clubhouse:
The grounds directly around the clubhouse comprise twenty acres.
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A deep hollow in front of the clubhouse, which made the property unsuitable for building purposes, puts a premium on it for golf purposes.
The first stretch of the ladies’ golf grounds is across the hollow and over a small brook.
The difficulty of crossing the hollow makes the first part of the course, in the opinion of experts, one of the best and most desirable in the country.
The links for the ladies crosses and recrosses the grounds in a confusing manner, making a distance of 1 ¼ miles.
(Madison Eagle [New Jersey], 8 June 1894, p. 3)
It seems to have been the golfing potential of the “Punch Bowl” in particular that first attracted the attention of local golfers:
Of course it was the “punch bowl” that first suggested the idea of golf to the Morristown pioneers.
Its steep hollows and long grassy swales gave it a sporty appearance and promised infinite possibilities.
[In 1898,] It is still an interesting feature of the course, but custom and the growth in golfing skill have robbed it of its old-time terrors.
(Harper’s Weekly, vol 42 no 2177 [10 September 1898], p. 900)
Goodness! The playing ability and the architectural sophistication of American golfers developed so quickly in the late 1890s that just four years after the construction of the 1894 course, the origin of golf at the Morris County Golf Club was remembered as “old-time” golf!
In fact, the layout that was said in 1894 to be, “in the opinion of experts, one of the best and most desirable [golf courses] in the country,” struck members in 1898 as obviously inadequate: “The … seven-hole course covered some fifteen acres and aggregated about 1300 yards in playing distance …. The original seven-hole round was ridiculously short – hardly more than a putting course” (Harper’s Weekly, vol 42 no 2177 [10 September 1898], p. 900).
Also laid out for the Morris County Golf Club in 1894 was a men’s course, made by combining f ive additional holes with the seven holes of the short ladies’ course: “The men’s links is longer, crossing the tracks of the D.L. and W. Railroad and covering 2 ¼ miles of country” (Madison Eagle, 8 June 1894, p. 3).
On the map of the two 1894 Morristown course shown below, the seven holes of the women’s course are marked by broken lines and the additional five holes of the men’s course are marked by solid lines.
Figure 211 Sun (New York), 3 June 1894, p. 17. The greens on the ladies' course are marked by brown numbers. The men’s course commenced after the 2nd hole, the greens on the men's course being marked above by purple numbers.
In what the newspaper cited above called a “confusing manner,” the ladies’ course crossed and recrossed a natural depression that golfers soon came to call the “Devil’s Punch Bowl.” The 1st fairway apparently crossed over the 3rd green, the 4th fairway apparently crossed over the 1st fairway, and there was apparently a walk of more than 100 yards from the 2nd green to the 3rd tee.
Such a routing of holes would indeed have confused a reporter seeing the course for the first time.
As shown on the map above, the men’s 3rd hole used a tee near the 2nd green of the ladies’ course. The men’s 7th green was near the 3rd tee of the ladies’ course.
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The men’s course was an afterthought at this “club … formed by women for women” (The Times, 13 October 1895, p. 17). Indeed, the men themselves were an afterthought:
When golf was first talked of as a Morristown recreation two years ago, the men simply talked and did nothing more.
The women, finding that only words were to be given them, then decided on action.
They formed a club, keeping all the offices to themselves, and had the links laid out and a colonial style clubhouse built….
Before long, the men were suing for admittance, and the boon was granted them under conditions.
(Sun [New York], 30 May 1895, p. 5)
It was only when men asked to be formally admitted to the Club that more and longer holes were laid out:
It is only when a woman consents to “put him up” at the club that a man enjoys any of the privileges.
Then they are allowed to play when they please on a special course laid out for their benefit.
(The Times [Washington, District of Columbia], 13 October 1895, p. 17)
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It was in July of 1894, according to the New York Times, that these new holes were built: “At present, the links at Morristown occupy barely more than half of the grounds, but arrangements are now under way to lay out that part of the land across the railroad track, and when the links are completed, they will cover a circuit as extensive as the famous links on the Shinnecock Hills” (New York Times, 4 July 1894, p. 3).
The same newspaper item reveals that until mid-summer of 1894, the ladies’ course apparently comprised not seven holes but eight holes: “The links now contain eight holes, covering a distance of about one and one-third miles” (New York Times, 4 July 1894, p. 3).
Not shown on the 1894 map reproduced above, the missing hole probably ran from the ladies’ 2nd green to the men’s 7th green. It was presumably removed from play when the men’s course opened.
As we know, the “Punch Bowl” served as a large natural hazard around which the first four holes of the ladies’ course were laid out, but there seem to have been no other natural hazards available for the remaining holes that were routed around the clubhouse. And so, “ditches and stone walls [were] added as extra hazards” (New York Times, 4 July 1894, p. 3).
These three holes and their artificial hazards would be retained by Park for his 18-hole course: “The last three holes … have good artificial hazards in the shape of an earth bunker topped by young evergreens, a stone wall, and a series of short fencing known as the ‘hurdles’” (Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [19 June 1895], p. 571).
Figure 212 The routes of the 5th, 6th, and 7th holes are indicated on the photograph called “Stone Wall Bunker, ‘Hurdles,’ and Club House” in Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 (15 June 1895, p. 571).
The Morris County Golf Club quickly outgrew its original courses:
Most of the holes could be reached by a moderately good drive and there was not a true second shot in the round.
This weakness soon became apparent and in 1895, the club acquired the lease of sixty f ive acres of outlying land and proceeded to install the full number of eighteen holes.
(Harper’s Weekly, vol 42 no 2177 [10 September 1898], p. 900).
Park maintained a 6-hole routing of holes where the original 7-hole ladies’ course was laid out. But he eliminated the original 1st hole and reversed the original 2nd hole. And he replaced the original 3rd and 4th holes with a single hole that became his 15th.
He seems to have re-used three of the four greens originally laid out around the Punch Bowl (eliminating only the original 3rd green), for, as Harper’s Weekly Magazine observed when the new course opened in June of 1895, “the holes around the ‘Punch bowl’ are perhaps the best at present, as the natural hazards are more interesting and the greens, through having a season’s care [since June 1894], are smoother and truer” (Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [19 June 1895], p. 571).
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Park somewhat lengthened each of the last three holes of the original 7-hole layout, but he otherwise kept them as originally laid out both with their existing greens and with the pine topped earth bunker on the 5th, the hazard called “Stone Wall Bunker” on the 6th, and the series of fences called “Hurdles” on the 7th.
But Park seems not to have used on his new 18-hole course any of the five holes beyond the railroad that were part of the men’s course laid out in 1894 (although it is possible that he kept the original 4th green as his 6th, the original 5th green as his 10th, and the original 6th green as his 12th).
Park’s 1895 course appears on the map below.
Figure 213 Sun (New York), 16 June 1895, p. 16.
Mind you, golf continued to be played throughout April and May on the original 7-hole course, but everyone from Club members and members of the press were aware of the new course taking shape and all eagerly anticipated its completion.
By early May, New York Sun golf writer Fitzpatrick was convinced that something special was being created: “There will be a sensation in the golfing world when the new links are opened on June 1” (Sun [New York], 12 May 1895, p. 25).
One of the first reviews of the course appeared in James P. Lee’s Golf in America, which was published in mid-May of 1895. Since the author dated his Preface 1 May 1895, we know that his comments about the course were written no later than April:
The course is fair, being laid out over rolling, uneven ground, already possessing the full number of eighteen holes.
The holes are rather short, varying from one hundred to three hundred yards, and the putting greens, being somewhat new, are not as yet in the best condition.
(Golf in America: A Practical Manual [New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1895], p. 49).
Note, however, that the course map above shows two holes significantly longer than the 300 yard holes that Lee said were the longest: there is the 530-yard 3rd hole and there is the 434 yard 4th hole.
Clearly, when Lee’s book went to print, Park had not yet finalized his design.
Fitzpatrick described two holes much longer than 300 yards on 12 May 1895: “The railroad tracks and embankment are crossed twice: going out, a stretch of meadow gives an open drive of 523 yards in taking the tracks to make the fourth hole, and, in returning, there is a drive of 480 yards to clear them again” (Sun [New York], 12 May 1895, p. 25). Yet when the course opened in June, the two holes that Fitzpatrick had described just three weeks earlier were nowhere to be found.
The 4th hole that opened in June did not cross the railroad at all, and, at 240 yards in length, it was not a long hole at all. The first hole to cross the railroad was the 287-yard 5th. And the hole that crossed the railroad on the return to the clubhouse, the 13th, was not the 480-yard three shotter described by Fitzpatrick but rather a 159-yard one-shotter.
Again, we can see that Park’s plans changed throughout the early spring.
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In every phase of his developing plans, mind you, Park was obviously determined to use the railroad as a cross bunker – which was entirely to be expected of an architect following penal design principles in laying out these new holes at Morristown.
Fitzpatrick points to similarly penal obstacles spanning fairways as cross hazards:
In going to the far hole, a row of trees must be passed, compelling low, straight drives, and some bad obstacles are the thorny stumps of blackberry bushes.
Other natural hazards are a double fence and intervening road, hedge rows, a deep depression called “the Devil’s Punch Bowl, Jr.,” and three old stone quarries converted into bunkers by being filled in with sand.
(Sun [New York], 12 May 1895, p. 25)
A full description of the course appeared after it opened in June, and it makes clear that there were penal cross hazards on most holes: From the first tee, there is a drive of 170 yards along the edge of the “Punch Bowl.”
Figure 214 Looking from the tee of Park’s 1st hole at Morris County Golf Club toward the putting green where four people stand. Charles A. Kip, The Morris County Golf Club Championship Scrap Book (Morristown, New Jersey: privately published, 1898), p. 10.
From the first tee, there is a drive of 170 yards along the edge of the “Punch Bowl.”
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With a fairly straight drive, the hole is an easy one, the approach being on a gentle down grade, but severe punishment awaits the unlucky man who “pulls” his ball into the yawning hollow on his left….
The second hole lies 160 yards away, the course being at right angles to the first links. The play is across the western dip of the “Punch bowl” and a short drive leaves the ball against a very difficult rise full of stones and affording very bad lies.
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An oak tree that stands on the very edge of the hollow, and ten yards to the right of the line, is apt to spoil a drive that is a trifle off the toe but which would otherwise have fallen close to the green.
Figure 215 Looking from the bottom of the “Punch Bowl” up the incline toward the putting green of Park's 2nd hole at Morris County Golf Club, where two golfers stand to the left of a gallery of spectators. Charles A. Kip, The Morris County Golf Club Championship Scrap Book (Morristown, New Jersey: privately published, 1898), p. 14.
The distance of the third hole is 458 yards, the longest drive of the course. Outside of its length, the hole is an uninteresting one, the ground being almost level, and at present without artificial hazards.
The play to the fourth hole, a distance of 295 yards, is also devoid of interest.
The play to the fifth hole crosses the railway embankment, the ground descending gently to a post-and-rail fence. The distance is 287 yards ….
The course to the sixth hole runs over a gently rolling country for 247 yards with some natural hazards of “islands” of briars and long grass.
The seventh hole is the most picturesque of the outgoing course. It lies at the bottom of a circular depression known as the “Little Punch Bowl” and is surrounded by woodland on three sides. The distance is 185 yards and a large “island” of briers and rocks lies directly in line and on the edge of the descent to the hole is a veritable pitfall for the man who does not drive his distance….
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It is a good long drive of 300 yards to the eighth hole with some fine hazards in the way of sand pits and a post-and-rail fence.
The ninth hole is 237 yards away with a blind ditch lying like a lion in the path.
The tenth hole has a length of 434 yards, and a gap through a windbreak of forest trees with an earth bunker in front of it presents an exceptionally good hazard.
The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth holes (distances 144, 333, and 159 yards) call for no special mention.
Across to the fourteenth hole, distance 157 yards, the line of play is over a sunken road [Punch Bowl Road] ….
Figure 216 A person putts on Park's 14th green. In the foreground is a post marking the 14th green; some distance behind the person putting is the post marking the 2nd green. In the background is the clubhouse. Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [19 June 1895], p. 571.
And to the fifteenth hole, the course is directly through the widest part of the “Punch Bowl,” the distance being 193 yards, and with an approach that makes a short drive fatal to a record.
The last three holes (distances 198, 177, and 149 yards) have good artificial hazards in the shape of an earth bunker topped by young evergreens, a stone wall, and a series of short fencing known as the “hurdles.” (Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [19 June 1895], p. 571).
In the description of the course above, penal cross bunkers are various: the “yawning hollow” of the “Punch Bowl”; “a very difficult rise full of stones” that has to be carried; the railway embankment; “post-and-rail fences”; “ ‘islands’ of briars and long grass”; “a large ‘island’ of briers and rocks … directly in line … the hole”; “a circular depression known as the ‘Little Punch Bowl’”; “sand pits”; “a blind ditch”; “a gap through a windbreak of forest trees with an earth bunker in front of it”; “a sunken road”; “an earth bunker topped by young evergreens”; “a stone wall”; “a series of short fencing known as the ‘hurdles.’”
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Yet despite its apparent comprehensiveness, the review of the course cited above neglects to mention important hazards.
The 3rd hole was characterized above as deficient: “Outside of its length, the hole is an uninteresting one, the ground being almost level, and at present without artificial hazards.” How it came to take on this uninteresting form in June of 1895 is unclear, for Park himself complained of its deficiencies when he first played the completed course:
[An] important change [for the 1896 season] will be in the third or long meadow hole, which is 458 yards distant from its tee.
The drive to this hole is over perfectly smooth, level land, and for this reason it was criticized by Willie Park, the scotch ex-champion, when he played at Morristown during his visit to this country.
There was too much of a sameness about it, he claimed, and the members have come to think so, too.
So barely half of this long meadow will be purchased … [and] the third hole will be cut down to about 177 yards.
(The Golfer [Boston], vol 2 no 3 [January 1896], p. 79)
It may be that Park had not designed this 3rd hole and had instead planned a short hole here to lead to the tee for the long 4th hole that was described by Fitzpatrick in May of 1895.
Surprisingly, however, the ostensibly “uninteresting” (and apparently rogue) 3rd hole proved to be a very difficult challenge during the 1895 season for many golfers – both professionals and amateurs alike.
The drive was faced by a cross bunker comprising fences on each side of the sunken road known as Punch Bowl Road. And these fences proved to be genuine obstacles. When Alexander Tiers played a challenge match against a fellow member of Morris County Golf Club in November of 1895, “Tiers topped his drive, the ball striking the fence with force enough to split a rail. He had to pick the ball up, it being wedged in a tight place, and so lose two strokes” (New York Times, 10 November 1895, p. 6).
And perhaps overlooked as a hazard by those who found the hole uninteresting – probably because of the common assumption in 1895 that proper hazards consisted of cross bunkers spanning the width of the fairway – was Madison Avenue, which marked the lefthand boundary of the 3rd fairway and of the golf course, itself (it is marked on the photograph below).
Figure 217 Greatly enlarged detail from a photograph of the Devil's Punch Bowl at Morris County Golf Club. Charles A. Kip, The Morris County Golf Club Championship Scrap Book (Morristown, New Jersey: privately published, 1898), p 12. The trees in the foreground mark the edge of Punch Bowl Road; the trees in the background mark the edge of Madison Avenue, which was also bordered by fences.
Madison Avenue proved to be a devastating hazard for Willie Norton in June of 1895 when he engaged none other than Willie Park himself in a challenge match at the official opening of the new course:
[On] the long drive to the third hole … Norton got into difficulties which tended somewhat to discourage him for at least half of the first round.
He failed to hit his ball squarely on the tee and, after sailing in the air for a few yards, apparently going straight …, the poor stroke, aided by a sudden gust of wind, suddenly took the ball out of its course and, curving in a wide angle, it flew through the trees on the side of the roadway and fell into a heap of stones across the public driveway [Madison Avenue].
Several carriages filled with guests were driving leisurely up to the grounds and for a minute, there was considerable excitement as the golf ball flew across the street.
Norton got back on the course in two strokes, but his chances for the hole were lost.
(New York Times, 9 June 1895, p. 3)
Norton had many such disasters on a course that was new to him, whereas Park “played in first class form” – “his game was steady and cool throughout and his driving superb – and won 17 of the 33 holes played (Sun [New York], 9 January 1895, p. 9).
Park’s two biggest fans that day were Florence and Hamilton Twombly. Having taught them how to play golf, Park had also taught them to appreciate the quality of the game he played that day:
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Mr. and Mrs. H. McK. Twombly … were among the members who followed the players around the course.
Mr. Twombly watched all the plays with the eye of an expert. After one of Park’s admirable 225-yard drives, he exclaimed to a friend nearby: “Beautiful! Beautiful! How he does drive, so easy and graceful. It is a rare treat to watch play such as that.”
Mrs. Twombly also shared the enthusiasm of her husband.
(Sun [New York], 9 June 1895, p. 9)
Like Norton, Willie Dunn also came to grief on the 3rd hole when at the beginning of July he played the second of his three celebrated matches against Park:
The third hole is the long drive, 530 yards over the road [Punch Bowl Road], two fences, and way down to the further end of a long meadow.
Dunn made a pretty drive over the fences and road of about 160 yards but he pulled his ball and it swerved out of its course, falling in the main roadway [Madison Avenue], across the fence and outside the course.
He got back on the [fair] green on his next stroke, but Park beat him on the hole, doing it in six to Dunn’s seven.
(Sun [New York], 7 July 1895, p. 20)
Park disdained the 3rd hole as uninteresting, but he had seen two very good golf professionals come to grief on it.
Just as the June review of the course cited above ignored the out-of-bounds danger on the 3rd hole, so its account of the 13th hole as requiring “no special mention” is odd.
This 159-yard one-shot hole crossed back over the railway embankment. Fitzpatrick points out that there were more obstacles than the railroad: “The drive to the [13th] hole recrosses the track but is obstructed by two trees, three fences, and a road” (Sun [New York], 7 July 1895, p. 20; Fitzpatrick mistakenly calls this hole the 15th). Fitzpatrick later observed of a competition held at Morris County in October 1895 that one player, “in playing from the thirteenth tee, to clear the railroad embankment, … drove his ball squarely against a tree trunk fifty feet off,” whereas another player’s “drive hit a telegraph pole” (Sun [New York], 17 October 1895, p. 4).
And there was more to be said of the “sunken” road to be crossed on the one-shot 157-yard 14th hole.
In connection with the October tournament mentioned above, Fitzpatrick notes that “for the fourteenth hole, the road, with its double fence and open drain, was stumbling block to many” (Sun [New York], 17 October 1895, p. 4). The “open drain” was a narrow ditch from which it was difficult to play the ball forward.
In laying out this course, Park availed himself of artificial hazards when necessary: “As the ground was far too smooth in some places, a number of artificial hazards, such as fences, stone walls, and sand pits, were added with a view of making the links less easy” (Daily Commercial Herald, 19 October 1894, p. 1). The fences alongside the roads and the railroad may have been in place before the golf course was laid out, but post-and-rail fences on the 5th and 8th holes may have been among the fences built as “artificial hazards.” Three of the sand pits built as “artificial hazards” were particularly fearsome: they comprised “three old stone quarries converted into bunkers by being filled in with sand” (Sun [New York], 12 May 1895, p. 25).
On the original 1894 course, the fairway crossing hazard on the 5th hole was described as an “earth bank” (New York Times, 20 October 1894, p. 7). Whether it was not just an earth bank but also a cop bunker is not clear, but it seems to have served as a cop bunker on Park’s layout, for in May of 1895, the New York Sun referred to it as an “earth bank and bunker” (Sun [New York], 30 May 1895, p. 5).
Park also laid out a course according to penal principles at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, at the beginning of June.
At some point during his 1895 stay in the United States, Park also laid out a course for the Agawam Hunt Club at Rumford, East Providence, Rhode Island. The Club says that “Agawam’s first golf course was designed and built in 1895 by Willie Park, Jr…. It was originally a 9-hole course” (https://www.agawamhunt.com/golf-history).
Perhaps he laid out the Agawam course when he was in Rhode Island working at Watch Hill at the beginning of June. Or he may have done so when he came to nearby Newport in mid-July 1895. After his match against Willie Davis, “Willie Park went from Newport to Watch Hill [Rhode Island], where he has been assisting in laying out a golf course” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 July 1895, p. 3).
The hazards that Park deployed on the Agawam layout were such as we have seen on his other American layouts in 1895. A Providence Journal writer, who seems to have been new to golf, found the hazards fascinating, describing them apparently in the order in which they were encountered on the 9-hole course, but neglecting to mention the number of the holes they were found on:
A few of the difficulties on the circuit of a mile and a half, starting from the teeing ground, include a succession of fences to be crossed, with trees and telegraph wires to be avoided.
Then a high bank and telegraph wires are to be crossed. If the ball goes too high, it will not make a good flight, and if too low, it may strike the fences or fall from the telegraph wires back to the steep bank and roll down to the brook.
The sand bunker proves a place of disaster to many. The experience of finding the ball peacefully reposing half buried in the soft sand with an eight-foot bank in front is one at which the golfer does not smile. After one, two, or a half-dozen futile strokes, his thoughts are too much for expression….
Perhaps the most picturesque hazard is the ravine. A little stream runs through a glen and there is a sheer descent with steep sides fully 40 feet deep and about 60 yards across. If by a slight miscalculation in the swing the ball should fall short of crossing the ravine, many strokes would be lost in getting on the high ground again.
(Providence Journal [Rhode Island], 30 November 1896, p. 2)
Fences, high banks, a ravine, a sand bunker at the base of an eight-foot-high bank – we recognize the severe fairway-wide cross penal golf course design.
Between May and July 1895, Park also designed at least four other golf courses, which will be discussed in chapters that follow: a nine-hole course for the Astors in the third week of May; a nine-hole course for the Misquamicut Golf Club of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, in early June; six holes for the Sadahqueda Golf Club of Utica, New York, also in June; and from June 22nd to 24th, nine more holes for the Webb’s Davis-designed nine-hole Shelburne Farms Golf Links at Shelburne, Vermont.
Artificial Bunkers Deferred
Curiously, many of Park’s 1895 American designs were modified relatively soon after he laid them out. It is possible that Park himself recommended this way of proceeding with the development of his layouts.
On the one hand, Park recommended against making a golf club’s first layout so difficult that it would turn off players new to the game:
It is to be kept in view … that links are to be laid out for the use of a certain class of golfers. If all are beginners, it is a mistake to make the course too difficult at first as it will diminish their pleasure and possibly disgust them with the green …. (The Game of Golf, p. 201)
One can imagine Park formulating this architectural advice during his visit to the United States in 1895. Although new clubs formed in Britain at that time tended to have a good number of members who were familiar with the game, most members of newly founded American golf clubs knew almost nothing about it.
Park suggests that as people new to golf “get more expert, the links can be made more difficult by lengthening the holes and similar devices” (The Game of Golf, p. 201). In the American Northeast in 1895, artificial cross bunkers were the most important of these “devices” to make a course more “difficult,” so it would not be surprising to find that Park deferred thoroughly populating his American courses with cross bunkers until members had learned to play the game.
On the other hand, Park offered quite practical architectural reasons for not regarding the location of teeing grounds, putting greens, and artificial bunkers on a new layout as fixed and final:
When a new green [i.e., a new golf course] is being formed, it is a mistake to do anything precipitately.
Experience of the course will best show its capabilities and the proper position for holes, tees, and hazards.
(The Game of Golf, p. 206)
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The proper location for teeing grounds, putting greens, and certain hazards will be a function of a number of factors: how far balls roll on particular turf, for instance, and what kinds of second shots can be played from a particular kind of turf.
“On a seaside links,” according to Park, “where the ground is hard and the turf short, a ball can be driven much further than on a hilly or heavy course, because it has a considerable run after alighting … while on a heavy inland course, where the grass is long, the drive is all carry without any run” (The Game of Golf, p. 200).
Furthermore, he notes, on the short turf of a links course, “it is possible to get away a long second stroke owing to the ball lying clear” of the turf, whereas “on a heavy inland course, where the grass is long, … owing to the interference of the grass [behind the ball] it is not possible to get away a long second stroke” (The Game of Golf, pp. 200-01). And so, longer holes can be laid out on the one course than on the other one.
On either a new links course or a new inland course, however, how far the ball rolls on the turf, as well as how the ball lies on the fairway grass, changes after a period of regular play: “however unpromising [links] ground may look at the moment, owing to a heavy covering of rough, benty grass, it will very soon improve with walking and playing over it, the rough grass will disappear, and a velvety sward take its place” (The Game of Golf, p. 195). And so:
On new greens [i.e. on new golf courses] which are of a rough nature, the holes should be made shorter to begin with until the ground is walked down, and they can afterwards be lengthened by putting the tees further back; for, of course, the putting greens cannot be removed save at great expense.
(The Game of Golf, p. 201)
According to Park, then, “It is not possible to lay down ideal distances because so much depends upon the nature of the ground” (The Game of Golf, p. 200). When architects lay out a golf hole, they make decisions based on how they anticipate it will play, but such decisions must be revisited after practical knowledge has been derived from a season of play on it.
When Park’s new layout at Morristown opened in June of 1895, Harper’s Weekly reported that “the outlying links [that is, the new holes beyond the original 7 holes] will undoubtedly improve in time and with the addition of new hazards” (Harper’s Weekly, vol 39 no 2008 [19 June 1895], p. 571). Park himself may have been the source of this authoritative pronouncement, which anticipates precisely his points in The Game of Golf: that time improves a course as it is played over and that artificial hazards can be added later to stiffen a course when the level of improved play allows it.
And recall that at the end of the first season of golf at Knollwood, “lengthening the holes and similar devices” to make the course “more difficult” (to use Park’s terms) was mandated by the Green Committee. By November of 1895, members had become “ambitious for more ground to cover” (New York Tribune, 17 November 1895, p. 24).
And the Knollwood members not only wanted the course made longer; they also wanted approach shots made more difficult on holes requiring two or more strokes to reach the putting green. And so, the Green Committee announced that by the spring of 1896, “all the shorter holes will have been lengthened and new difficulties placed in the way of such as seem too easy to approach” (New York Tribune, 17 November 1895, p. 24).
We recall that holes 1 to 4 were redesigned (with another hole added to this part of the course), but the lengthening of holes 5 to 18 seems to have occurred by changing the teeing grounds (except in the case of the combining of the 15th and 16th holes to make a single, long hole). Of course, this was precisely the cost-effective strategy for lengthening courses that Park would recommend a few months later in The Game of Golf – since “the putting greens cannot be removed save at great expense” (The Game of Golf, p. 201).
It seems likely that when Park laid out the Knollwood course in the spring, he explained his strategy both to Van Etten and to the Green Committee: leave the original course relatively easy as beginners learn to play and then lengthen the course and add more artificial bunkers.
With this possibility in mind, it is interesting to note that a week after Park sailed for Scotland, Knollwood hired Park’s New York store manager Peter Blair as its golf professional: “The Knollwood Country Club at Elmsford, Westchester County, has just engaged the services of Peter S. Blair, who was Willie Park’s business assistant while in this country, as professional instructor over the club’s golf links” (Sun [New York], 28 July 1895, p. 6).
Had Park recommended Blair to Knollwood? If so, did he more or less install Blair there with a view to his supervising a lengthening of holes and a construction of additional artificial bunkers – work that Park had anticipated from the beginning?
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Blair (1864-1911), a printer and an accomplished amateur golfer, knew the Park family well. He and Willie (who was the same age as Blair) had both attended Musselburgh Academic School, and they had both learned to play golf on the Musselburgh links. Having accepted Park’s invitation to manage his new store in New York, Blair sailed from Scotland at the end of April 1895, arriving in New York on May 1st and residing thereafter in an apartment at the store.
He also caddied for Park during the latter’s high stakes challenge matches during the spring and summer. A boy could not have coped as Park’s caddie, it was said, because Park’s bag was too heavy: he carried not only a larger than usual number of right-handed clubs, but also a large number of left-handed clubs should they be needed to help him to escape troublesome situations.
With his appointment at Knollwood, Blair began a career as a golf professional, and he simultaneously began a career as a golf course architect.
In August of 1895, New York Sun golf writer Fitzpatrick observed that Blair was a very good golfer – “Blair has been making some fine scores lately over the Knollwood course” – and he indicated that Blair hoped to compete in that year’s inaugural USGA Amateur Championship, which led Fitzpatrick to warn that Blair’s new professional activities would probably frustrate his desire to play in this amateur competition:
[Blair] has always played as an amateur in Scotland, and if his entry be accepted by the United States Golf Association, he will enter in the amateur event at Newport.
As he has given lessons in this country and makes the selling of clubs and the laying out of courses his occupation, it is doubtful if Blair can pass the test which would quality him as an amateur.
(Sun [New York], 19 August 1895, p. 9)
Whether Fitzpatrick means that Blair’s work at Knollwood included not just giving lessons and making and selling clubs but also “the laying out” of its course is not clear, but it is interesting to note that it was reported in the fall of 1895 that there had been a good deal of work done on Park’s Knollwood course during the summer when Blair was in charge:
The golf course has been very materially improved during the summer months and it has been the subject of much favorable comment from visitors from other golf clubs.
There is certainly no more picturesque course in the country, and the putting greens and the immediate [fair] greens are in very good condition.
(New York Times, 24 September 1895, p. 6)
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Regarding the possibility that Park installed Blair at Knollwood to supervise the completion of its layout according to Park’s specifications, it is also interesting to note that after Park returned to Scotland in July of 1895, Blair later appeared on site at other golf courses that Park had laid out.
At the end of May, Park laid out a 9-hole course at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, for the Misquamicut Golf Club (which was officially organized a month later):
GOLF THE FAD
Links Laid Out at Watch Hill and a Club House to be Built
The Watch Hill golf club is composed of the cottagers, a number of the hotel guests who come to the Hill every year, and residents of Westerly.
The links have been laid out on the farm of John M. Browning by Willie Park, Jr., a Scotchman of quite a reputation as a golf expert….
S.J. Reuter now has men at work putting the grounds in shape. A club house is to be at once erected.
(The Day [New London, Connecticut], 8 June 1895, p. 8)
The course was “to be ready for play on [June] 24th (Newport Mercury and Weekly News [Rhode Island], 15 June 1895, p. 1).
Figure 218 Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895.
Seen to the left is a map of the “Misquamicut Golf Links” published in the local Watch Hill Life newspaper in August of 1895.
The reproduction is of poor quality, and not easily legible. The original map was hand drawn. Park himself may have prepared the map himself while at “the Misquomicot [sic] golf club, the most of whose [100] members … [were] receiving instruction from Willie Park” (Springfield Weekly Republican [Springfield, Massachusetts], 9 August 1895, p. 1).​
The same nine holes appear on a slightly later map drawn shortly after nine new holes were added to the course in 1896, apparently by Willie Anderson. The much more easily readable map below shows Davis’s nine holes, which retained their integrity as a nine-hole circuit within the new 18-hole layout.
Figure 219 Modified map of the Willie Park - Willie Anderson 18-hole course of the Misquamicut Golf Club at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, circa 1896. The original map has been modified to show only Park’s holes and to number as 7, 8, and 9 the three holes that would be renumbered 16, 17, and 18, respectively, on the 18-hole circuit.
The map above is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise relative to the 1895 map shown on the page above. It has been modified to show only Park’s 1895 holes.
The Browning farmland on which Park laid out the course was described as “dunes and hummocks covered with verdure” and as “slope, hillock and valley” (Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895). Found throughout the property were “shrubby mounds” (Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895). Furthermore, “the valley [was] studded with moss-covered rocks and picturesque cedar trees” (Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895). And crossing this typical Rhode Island farm property, of course, were stone fences and a farm road. Also running through the golf course was a “Highway” (called Ocean Avenue).
Both maps show these features of the property and allow us to see that Park routed most of his holes over existing roads and stone fences – features of the property regarded as “natural hazards” in those days. He also routed holes through areas of high ground and low ground, often crossing perpendicularly over dramatic elevation changes.
Figure 220 Annotated version of the map in Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895.
Seen to the left, an annotated version of the August 1895 map prints words that are present on the map but difficult to read.
It colours the farm road brown, the highway grey, and the stone fences red.
There were “natural” cross bunkers of some sort on all holes except for the 1st, 3rd, and 8th.
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The “Highway” served as a cross bunker on the 2nd hole. A hillock had to be carried on the 187-yard 4th hole (“Horse Shoe”) to reach the putting green in a bowl or “cup”: “The most beautiful teeing spot of all is called the Horse Shoe.
Looking down from the tee, [one finds] a natural cup in the hillocks hedged around by the shrubby mounds” (Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895). The 5th hole presented a stone fence as a cross bunker for the drive and the “farm road” as a hazard along the left edge of the fairway until it crossed the fairway as a cross bunker facing the 3rd shot. From the 6th tee to the 9th green, the Watch Hill Life writer says, “the course winds back in a running valley” (Watch Hill Life, 7 August 1895). On each of the 6th, 7th, and 9th holes, a stone fence served as a cross bunker to be carried by the drive.
Park acted in accord with penal design principles in his use of available natural hazards (hillocks, stone fences and roads) as cross bunkers. Once again, however, he may have refrained from making the original course as difficult as he meant it to be ultimately, for – lo and behold! – his business manager Blair showed up on site in December of 1895: “The Watch Hill Golf Club, which has one of the best seaside links on Rhode Island, has engaged Peter Blair to enlarge and improve the course. A number or artificial bunkers will be constructed” (Sun [New York], 16 December 1895, p. 8).
We can see on the post-1896 course map that three artificial bunkers were added sometime after the summer of 1895 to holes 3, 5, and 9. The word printed on the post-1896 map beside each of these cross hazards is difficult to decipher, but it seems to be the same word, and it may well be the word “bunker.”
These cross bunkers are drawn in each case with curving lines, which suggests that they may have been bastion bunkers – overlapping curving cop bunkers with narrow alleys between them.
Figure 221 enlarged details from the post-1896 map above of holes 3, 5, and 9. The cross bunker is highlighted in pink; the word that may be "bunker" is highlighted in yellow; the putting green is highlighted in green.
The cross bunker on the 3rd hole was placed so as to require the 2nd shot to carry it; the cross bunker on the 5th hole was placed so as to require an approach shot to be lofted over it; the cross bunker on the 9th hole was placed so as to require the drive to carry it.
Figure 222 Willie Anderson, circa 1900.
It is possible that these cross bunkers were added by 16-year-old Willie Anderson (1879-1910), who arrived at the Misquamicut Golf Club from North Berwick, Scotland, in the spring of 1896 to take up his first job as a golf professional.
But it is just as likely – if not more so – that they are the “artificial bunkers” that Blair was hired to construct in December of 1895.
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Anderson has been credited with adding nine new holes to the course in 1896. He certainly had something to do with the new holes, yet it is interesting to note that Park was back at the course in the summer of 1896:
“Golf is not new to Watch Hill, for a fine nine-hole course was laid out there by Willie Park two years ago [1895], and he visited it last year [1896] and suggested some improvements” (New York Times, 13 June 1897, p. 20).
Figure 223 In this late 1890s photograph, 16-year-old Willie Anderson may be the young man sitting beside the recently constructed clubhouse of the Misquamicut Golf Club.
Considering that the Misquamicut Golf Club had gone to the trouble and expense of having internationally renowned designer Willie Park, Jr, lay out its first course, the idea that it then allowed an untried 16-year-old to design and build nine new holes without any input from or supervision by an acknowledge golf authority had always struck me as a bit odd. The newspaper item above about Park’s visit to the course in the summer of 1896 suggests that Park may have had the final word on Anderson’s proposal for nine new holes.
There is a pattern at the two golf courses discussed above: Park designs Knollwood in the spring and then Blair shows up in the summer to manage the course for the rest of the year; Park designs the Watch Hill course in May and then Blair shows up to add artificial hazards in December. One might suspect that in each case – to borrow baseball terminology – Park worked as the opener and Blair worked as the closer.
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We shall see in a later chapter that Park spent thee days at the home of the Webbs at Shelburne Farms in Vermont in June planning nine new holes for the Shelburne Farms Golf Links. And then what happened? Blair arrived at Shelburne Farms for three days of work in August (to be followed in the fall, furthermore, by Willie Davis).
A similar two-stage process seems to have occurred in Park’s laying out of a six-hole course at Whitesboro, a village near Utica, New York. Park visited Whitesboro after leaving Watch Hill but before going to Shelburne Farms:
Early in June, Willie Park, who was champion of Scotland, and who twice won the championship of the world, came to Utica for a few days on his way to Dr. Webb’s place at Shelburne, Vt.
At the solicitation of the members of the [Sadaquada] club, he laid out a course of six links on Kernan Hill ….
(Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
“Kernan Hill” seems to have been one of the names for the Kernan farm near Hart’s Hill – less than a mile from the centre of Whitesboro and about four miles from Utica. This farm was part of the estate of New York’s recently deceased U.S. Senator Francis Kernan, whose son Walter Newberry Kernan (1864-1940), a local lawyer, had become owner of the property.
Figure 224 Annotated detail from 1891 Bird's Eye View of Whitesboro, New York.
Walter Kernan’s grandfather had come to the Whitesboro area in the early 1800s from County Cavan, Ireland, which he fled with a warrant on his head after participating in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. By 1895, Walter Kernan was by no means the only Kernan in the neighbourhood: Utica’s first golf club was “organized principally of members of the Kernan family” (Utica Observer [New York], 16 October 1899, p. 6). The Kernan family’s pride in its Irish heritage was perhaps responsible for the fact that during the 1895 golf season (play continued until mid December) “the course … became generally known as the St. Patrick’s Links…. The colors of the club are olive green and its insignia is the shamrock” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
Figure 225 Walter Newberry Kernan (1864 1940).
Walter Kernan would become the first president of the golf club, which was known in October of 1895 simply as “the Utica Golf Club,” although its name was changed to Sadaquada at the beginning of 1896.
Golf had come to Utica in 1894, the year before Kernan offered his farm as the site for a golf course.
The Sadaquada Golf Club website claims that it was in 1894 that the man who would become secretary and captain of the new club, Charles Halstead Yates (1860-1931), brought the first golf clubs to town after he had witnessed the game being played in New Jersey.
Yates and a number of others – including Kernan – tried out the strange implements on various sites around Whitesboro, staking out four holes here, five holes there, and so on (https://www.sadaquadagolfclub.com/index.php/history-3/).
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But whether club first struck ball in 1894 or 1895 is not clear. The Utica Observer says that Halstead Yates actually got golf started in the spring of 1895:
The fascinating game of golf was introduced in Utica last spring by C. Halstead Yates.
He brought to this city some golfing sticks and with the aid of some of the young men of Utica laid out a small set of links on Hart’s Hill, Whitesboro.
The pleasures of the game were quickly become manifest, and Mr. Yates had many ardent admirers of the game he had introduced.
The links, which had been somewhat crude at first, were soon improved and were occupied every Saturday afternoon during the summer and autumn.
(Utica Observer [New York], 11 February 1896, p. 8)
The editor repeated this claim a few months later, asserting that, in retrospect, it was really in the spring of 1895 that the tipping point occurred when, after “C. Halstead Yates, Walter N. Kernan and W.S. Doolittle … began [to play golf] in a primitive way on Kernan Hill,” “others joined with them in the sport and the game became such a success that the links were almost constantly occupied and gentlemen came down from Syracuse to play” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
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William S. Doolittle (1855-1920), who spent his entire life in Utica as clerk of the Unites States court, would become the Club’s second president.
Figure 226 William S. Doolittle (1855-1920).
The nature of the six holes laid out by Park in June of 1895 is not known. The editor of the Utica Observer noted: “The links of the club are situated on a gentle slope just above [the Sauquoit Creek] … and command a most inspiring view” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
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In this light, it is interesting to observe that when this editor introduced readers to golf in April of 1896, in addition to describing the origins of the game in Scotland, then describing the spread of the game to England in the 1880s and to the United States in the 1890s, next describing the clubs golfers used, and finally describing the clothes golfers wore, he also added a curious description of the typical golf course:​​
“The course, which consists generally of a series of nine holes, … leads the player across shallow brooks, over rambling rail fences, in and out among orchard trees and through narrow gullies” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
Unaware that a proper golf course contains 18 holes, and that for over 400 years courses were laid out almost exclusively on links land, the editor’s description of the land “generally” associated with a golf course seems likely to have been a description of the Kernan property over which Park laid out his course.
Park’s course was used “throughout the summer” of 1895 but then, “as the popularity of the sport increased,” it was decided that “better facilities were required” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5). On the one hand, it seems that six holes proved insufficient to host the numbers of golfers who wished to play (golfers were coming down from Syracuse!). On the other hand, members seem to have wanted a more difficult course.
Such are the inferences to be drawn, it seems, from the fact that Horace Rawlins was brought to town in the fall of 1895 with a double mandate: to plan a nine-hole course “with abundant room” for golf and to plan the construction of artificial bunkers (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5).
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Limited by the amount of land he had at his disposal, Park seems to have been constrained to design a 6-hole layout. But when the Utica Golf Club was formally organized in October, it acquired more land:
Marked improvements will be made in the golfing grounds on Hart’s Hill early in the coming spring.
The two lots adjoining those on which the old links laid have been acquired by the Sadakqueda [sic] Club and the number of the links increased from six to nine.
(Utica Observer [New York], 11 February 1896, p. 8)
The Utica Daily Press reported the following on 11 November 1895:
A Champion Golfer in Town
The American champion at golf, Horace Rawlins, is in this city at the expense of the Utica Golf Club to oversee improvement of the golf links, which now will consist of nine holes instead of six.
The club is to have one of the finest links in this part of the state.
Mr. Rawlins is the assistant keeper of the Newport Golf Club ….
(Utica Daily Press [New York], 11 November 1895, p. 4)
But his news item was well out of date, for Rawlins had visited Utica in October: “He passed two weeks here at that time, laying out the links and giving instructions, and then returned to England” (Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5). Rawlins had sailed for England at the end of October.
In his introduction of his readers to the game of golf in April of 1896, the editor of the Utica Observer says that Rawlins “laid out a course of nine new links,” but it may be that the editor (who was unfamiliar with golf) meant to say that Rawlins laid out a new course that had nine holes, for the New York Times reported in February not that there were nine new holes, but just three:
The Sadahqueda [sic] Golf Club … has signalised its progressiveness by engaging as its greenkeeper and professional Horace Rawlins, the present holder of the open championship of the United States ….
He has already visited the grounds and laid out a fine nine-hole course, which was practically a lengthening and improving of the old six-hole course laid out last June by “Willie” Park, Jr….
Some artificial bunkers will be built on the course before the regular playing season begins.
​
(Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5; New York Times, 25 February 1896, p. 10)
Rawlins’ work in October seems to have involved no construction work. Indeed, while he was at the Club, it conducted its “fourth tournament” of the season (Utica Observer [New York], 19 October 1895, p. 6). Interviewed in April of 1896 by the editor of the Utica Observer, Rawlins’ description of the work that lay ahead implies that the original six-hole Willie Park course still awaited the redesign that Rawlins had planned:
While little or no money was laid out on the course during the season of ’95, elaborate arrangements have been planned for making such improvements, as soon as the weather will permit, as will make the course compare favorably with any inland links in America.
Immediately at the close of last season, Horace T. Rawlins … was engaged as green keeper and instructor for the club. He is now engaged in the top floor of the Devereux Block making sticks for the coming season and is turning out some fine work. As soon as the snow leaves the ground, he will begin work placing the course in proper condition.
In the early part of the season, he will have five or six assistants, for “putting greens” must be laid out, “bunkers” built, the entire course ploughed, seeded, and rolled, and the stones picked out.
Each link or hole is placed in the centre of a level space, 25 feet square, known as a “putting green.”
“Bunkers” are sodded mounds, two or three feet high, placed around the links to make the shots the more difficult of execution….
The new green keeper says the Sadaquada Club links are a bit short just at present, but there is abundant room for lengthening them another year if it is deemed wise to do so. He believes that when the improvements planned are carried out, the result will be a f ine sporting course, one of the best of any inland city on the continent.
(Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5)
Was this another case of Park setting up a relatively short and easy course in June of 1895 that would not put off beginners – leaving to a later time the lengthening of holes and the addition of artificial bunkers?
On the one hand, it was said that “little or no money was laid out on the course during the season of ’95” (Utica Observer, [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5). And so, Park’s architectural work in June of 1895 may have been of a minimalist sort because a golf club had not been officially organized (a club would be formed in October) and so there had perhaps been little money to spend on a layout.
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On the other hand, the stages of development of the Utica course during its first year are similar to the stages of development during the first year at Knollwood, Misquamicut, and (as we shall see) Shelburne Farms: Park laid out a course in the spring; others supplemented his work in the summer and fall.
Recall that Rawlins first visited the Utica club in October of 1895. I suspect that he travelled to Utica on October 14th and that he did so in the company of his Newport mentor Willie Davis, who left New York City for Shelburne Farms that day to complete the Park’s new nine-hole design for the Webbs: “W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, left the city [New York] yesterday [14 October 1895] for Dr. Seward Webb’s place, Shelburne Farms, Vt., where he will be employed for some time making improvements on the links” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5).
Park had met Davis and his assistant Rawlins at Newport in July: I suspect that he was so impressed by them that he subsequently arranged for Davis to work on his behalf at Shelburne Farms and recommended to the Utica golfers not only that Rawlins was the man to extend and lengthen their course but also that he was the man to hire as their golf professional.
Havemeyer Hosts Park
Proud that a working-class boy from Musselburgh had parlayed a career as golf professional not only into requests to lay out golf courses for the wealthiest families in America but also into invitations to stay with them in their homes, Park dropped the names of some of his American patrons when talking to Edinburgh reporters on his return to Scotland at the end of July 1895:
In answer to the question of whether he had been introduced to any celebrities, Willie said that … he went to the Astors’ home at Rhyncliffe. Here, he stayed for a week, during which he enjoyed hospitality as an American and a millionaire knows how to offer….
He was also introduced to Dr. Webb, whose wife is a Vanderbilt. On the Doctor’s invitation, he stayed three days at the family’s residence at Shelburne ….
To Mr. Twombly (whose lady is [also] a Vanderbilt) and Mr. Havemyre [sic], two New York millionaires, Willie was also introduced and enjoyed their hospitality.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch [Scotland], 31 July 1895, p. 2)
Figure 227 Sherwood Lodge, Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1895.
As we know, the latter of the “two New York millionaires” mentioned by Park, Theodore A. Havemeyer, was in 1895 president of the newly formed United States Golf Association, and he was also, of course, president of the Newport Golf Club, whose golf course he was eager to make one of the best in the world – and so his request that Park visit the Club.
Havemeyer invited Park to stay at the family’s Newport “cottage,” Sherwood Lodge (seen to the left).
Each of Havemeyer’s four sons shared their father’s passion for golf and took lessons from Davis, who also caddied for the youngest of the Havemeyer boys in the mid-1890s when they played in important tournaments at the Newport Golf Club.
Figure 228 Left to right: Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1876-1965); Henry Rogers Winthrop (1876-1958); Theodore Augustus Havemeyer, Jr (1870-1936); Theodore Augustus Havemeyer, Sr (1837-1897); Frederick Christian Havemeyer (1879-1948). The Illustrated American, 25 August 1894, p. 22.
Park’s change of plans so as to allow a visit to Newport was announced in New York newspapers on Sunday, July 14th, with the New York Sun explaining: “He has been requested by several of the Newport Golf Club members to visit their fine new course before leaving this country, and he will go down there tomorrow to spend two or three days” (Sun [New York], 14 July 1895, p. 7).
Park apparently travelled down to Newport on Monday, July 15th. A 36-hole match with Davis was scheduled to commence at 11:00 a.m. on July 16th and before his big money matches played during his stay in the United States, Park generally played a practice round on the course before playing for the purse. Given the morning start scheduled for July 16th, playing the course before the match would have required arriving in Newport by July 15th.
Because of poor weather, the match scheduled for the morning of July 16th was postponed for twenty-four hours. It commenced at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 17th, and did not conclude until 6:10 p.m., so it is likely that Park also spent the night of July 17th at Newport (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 18 July 1895, p. 6).
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And so, Park is likely to have been in Newport from at least July 15th to at least the morning of July 18th.
The Big Match
If Park was to offer informed advice about the golfing prospects of the property at Newport, he would have to become familiar with the existing golf course.
And he quickly did so, for over the course of two days, he played 54 holes on this nine-hole course (six circuits of the layout) during intense match-play competition against Davis. In fact, the big news that came out of Park’s visit to Newport had little to do with his opinions about architecture, and much more to do with his fortunes at golf, for Davis defeated Park – widely reported as the only defeat that Park suffered in the United States.
A 36-hole match “for a large purse subscribed by club members” ($100 to the winner, $25 to the loser) was planned for Tuesday, July 16th, but, as we know, bad weather led to a twenty-four-hour delay – “the links being entirely unfit because of a violent rain early in the day” (New York Times, 17 July 1895, p. 12). But since so many spectators had gathered for the big-money contest that was expected to take place that day, Davis and Park agreed to play “an informal match of eighteen holes,” and so, “many society people followed the players … through a drizzling rain” (New York Times, 17 July 1895, p. 12).
Park beat Davis by one hole, Park shooting 84 and Davis shooting 86 (Boston Globe, 21 July 1895, p. 21).
The golf writer for the New York Times observed: “On account of the condition of the course, the score was hardly creditable, but Park beat Davis [by] one hole. Park appears a trifle more skillful than Davis and betting tonight is slightly in his favor” (New York Times, 17 July 1895, p. 12). The golf writer for the New York Sun, however, hesitated to regard their play in this informal match as predictive of what would happen with a purse at stake: “Many were attracted to the grounds despite the weather and the play was closely watched. Neither man made a good score and it is doubtful if either was inclined to show the other his good points until they were actually playing for money” (Sun [New York], 17 July 1895, p. 4).
In a typically laconic entry about this day in his 1895 diary, Willie Davis hints that this round of golf may have had an ulterior motive:
July 16th
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Played practice round with W. Park to show him the links before playing match tomorrow.
18 holes in light rain. W. Park 1 up.
(W.F. Davis, Diary entry 16 July 1895, courtesy of Susan A. Martensen)
Davis’s sentence is ambiguous: it is not clear whether he is saying that showing Park the links was to prepare him for the money match the next day or whether he is saying that he played with Park “to show him the links” so that he could evaluate the course (that is, for the Club directors).
Although in Park’s three-match series of 36-hole contests against Willie Dunn, the latter had won the final match at Meadowbrook Golf Club after Park’s victories at Shinnecock Hills and Morris County, Park’s 2:1 victory in the series was regarded by most golf reporters as maintaining Park’s undefeated standing in his matches against the top professionals then playing in the United States. Park himself seems to have held this view, too: he told his hometown newspaper in Musselburgh that “the match was a three-course one, the best of three to win” (Musselburgh News [Scotland], 2 August 1895, p. 3). Consequently, he declared that he came “back to this country [Scotland] with only one defeat recorded, a loss of a match by a hole” (Musselburgh News [Scotland], 2 August 1895, p. 3).
Reporters and spectators in Newport certainly regarded Park as undefeated in the United States, and so the closeness of the preliminary contest between Park and Davis whetted the appetite for the official match to come.
Anticipation of an exciting match combined with much improved weather to cause “the members of the Country Club to flock to the Newport golf links to witness the game of golf between Supt. W.F. Davis of the Newport club and Mr. William Park, Jr., of Scotland” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 18 July 1895, p. 6). Even those who knew nothing about the game were drawn to the golf course, such as a local reporter, “an outsider” to whom “the game … looked awfully dull,” who seemed surprised that “there were two or three hundred golf enthusiasts present” (Newport Mercury [Providence, Rhode Island, 20 July 1895, p. 1).
And what a match the crowd witnessed!
A great crowd of society people followed the players of the Newport links, though the ground was very wet from recent rains.
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The men played 18 holes in the morning and 18 in the afternoon for a very large purse….
At the close of the … morning play the men were even up.
Both men played desperately for the afternoon match. Park desired to return to England with a clean record of victories. Davis was anxious to be his first conqueror in America.
(New York Times, 18 July 1895, p. 6)
Fortunes ebbed and flowed over the course of all 36 holes. Davis looked the likely winner after the first nine holes of the morning session:
Park led out with a rattling drive to the right. Davis followed in the same line, halved in four.
Both made good drives to the second hole; difficult approaches cost each of them five to the hole.
Park heeled his ball at the third hole, and Davis pulled his to the left, finally being divided in four.
On the fourth hole, Park drove and landed a little to the right. Davis landed on the green and holed out in two strokes with a splendid putt. Davis one up.
Figure 229 Willie Davis prepares to play from the original 1st tee box at Newport Golf Club, circa 1895.
Davis foozled his drive on the fifth. Park got the right. The hole was halved in five.
It took four strokes from each player to reach the green of the sixth hole. Davis holing out a fine putt secured the hole. Davis two up.
A perfect four was executed by the players for the seventh hole.
The eighth hole was halved in five.
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A perfect four on Davis’s part secured the ninth hole. Davis three up.
(The Montreal Star [Quebec, Canada], 27 July 1895, p. 9)
But Park fought back over the next nine holes:
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Park won the first hole with four strokes to Davis’s five. [Davis two up.]
The second hole was halved in four.
Figure 230 Willie Park follow-through. Circa 1900.
Going to the third hole, Park pulled his ball out of bounds. Davis had a straight stroke. Park played his third from the tee with a penalty of one stroke and the distance. [Davis three up.]
On the fourth hole, Park holed a good putt, securing a half in four.
Park won the fifth hole. [Davis two up.] Both had good drives to the next hole [6]. Park landed on the green with his third stroke, winning the hole. [Davis one up.]
On the next hole [7], Park struck a rock. Davis won the hole. Davis two up.
Davis had a bad tee [shot] for the next hole [8] and Park won. [Davis one up.]
On the last hole, Davis [played] his ball into difficulties, which lost him the hole. [Match tied.]
(The Montreal Star [Quebec, Canada], 27 July 1895, p. 9)
Park looked the likely winner after the first nine holes of the afternoon session, but Davis fought back:
At the close of hole 9, Park was 2 up, and thought to be a winner, but at hole 11 Davis had tied him.
They broke even on holes Nos.12 and 13.
Davis won the 14th and was thus ahead for the first time [in the afternoon session].
Holes Nos. 15 and 16 were halved, and Park won the 17th, thus tying the score on 35 holes played, with one only to play.
Both men drove long and accurately for the last hole. Davis’s second brought him onto the green.
But Park made a bad hit into a gully, and it took him two strokes to get out…. Davis won the last hole in 4 strokes to Park’s 6, winning also the match.
(New York Times, 18 July 1895, p. 6)
On the 9th hole, there was no “gully,” per se, for Park to hit into; he told Scottish reporters that he “got into a rock-crack” (Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2).
Members of the Newport Golf Club had not expected Davis to win:
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The professional match … was witnessed by a large contingent of fashionable and enthusiastic golfers.
It was the first tournament that Davis has played this season, but he has been keeping in excellent practice and really put up a well judged and brilliant game.
In view of Park’s reputation and the big victories he has won since being in this country, many of the members rather expected to see him win, although they had great faith in the abilities of their own professional, and it was with unconcealed feelings of pleasure that they saw Davis win at the thirty-sixth hole of the match.
(Sun [New York], 22 July 1895, p. 7)
All appreciated the significance of Davis’s accomplishment:
Davis was roundly congratulated upon his success.
It was the finest golf ever seen in America, undoubtedly, Park’s play being remarkably f inished and very steady at all times. Davis made some very brilliant strokes, especially on the putting greens.
Park said it was the closest match he had played in America.
(Chicago Chronicle [Illinois], 18 July 1895, p. 4)
Davis told New York Sun golf writer Hugh Fitzpatrick that this triumph over Park was “the match he took the most pride in” (Sun [New York], 10 January 1902, p. 4).
In his otherwise matter-of-fact diary, Davis allowed himself to record – probably as a stand-in for his own feelings – the reaction of the spectators to his last-hole victory:
July 17th
Played W. Park – 36 holes for $100.00.
Very close match.
Davis one up on last hole.
Quite a crowd following. Newport people glad that I won.
(W.F. Davis, Diary entry 16 July 1895, courtesy of Susan A. Martensen)
Although, as we have seen, Park’s friends made an excuse for his loss (the fact that he had forgotten to take with him to Newport his good luck charm: a photograph of his fiancée), Park himself was gracious in defeat. He told Scottish reporters that it had been “a close, good game” (Musselburgh News [Scotland], 2 August 1895, p. 3). And Park complimented the Newport spectators when reporters quizzed him about Americans’ knowledge of the game:
“What about golfing terms? Are they understood and used?”
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“Oh, yes, they have them as pat as we have. They knew perfectly well what a stymie was and were greatly taken up by my holing a stymie. I did it for them several times.”
“Did an occasion occur in your match play?”
“Yes, in one of my matches at Newport with Davies [sic]”
“And you put it in?”
“Yes, and there was some applause.”
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2)
About Our Links, Mr. Park
With this victory over the great Park, Davis’s standing among the golf professionals in the United States was elevated, with the New York Sun observing that “Davis’s victory over Park puts him in the class with Dunn, Lloyd, and Campbell” (Sun [New York], 21 July 1895, p. 16).
Davis was no doubt aware that, in particular, his standing in his employer’s eyes had risen considerably, for Theodore Havemeyer was a great admirer of Willie Park.
Figure 231 Theodore Havemeyer. 1892.
In the run-up to Park’s arrival in Newport, it is likely that Davis was told by Havemeyer to expect that Park would be joining him at Newport for the rest of the summer. Newspaper reports to this effect emerged in June: “Willie Park, the Scotch champion, will spend most of the season” on “the new links at the [Newport] Country Club”; “Willie Park, the Scotch champion, will spend the season on the new [Newport] Country Club links, which are said to the finest on this side of the water” (Boston Globe, 2 June 1895, p. 18; Pittsburgh Press [Pennsylvania], 16 June 1895, p. 9). No such thing happened, but not for lack of effort on Havemeyer’s part.
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Havemeyer also let it be known not only that he expected Park to be in Newport until the end of September, but also that he planned to arrange for the winner of September’s U.S. Open to play Park in a match-play contest –
“A match series will … be played between the [U.S. Open] professional championship winner and Willie Park, the crack Scotch player” (Boston Globe, 30 June 1895, p. 26).
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But Park would not stay in the United States beyond July. Indeed, he set sail for Scotland just a few days after his match against Davis. And he would not return for the inaugural U.S. Open at Newport in September.
In fact, he would not return to the United States until the summer of 1896.
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But in the spring of 1895, even as Davis was extending and fortifying with new artificial hazards his 1894 nine-hole layout so that there would be a proper course on which the U.S. Open could be played in the fall, Havemeyer and the other governors of the Newport Golf Club had already formed a more ambitious plan for their course.
And so, Havemeyer asked Park to delay his return to Scotland by a week so that he could visit Newport – not to play a high-stakes match against Davis but also to advise the Club regarding its plans for the future:
Willie Park will go to Newport … to go over the Newport links with some of the members and offer suggestions regarding them, for Mr. T.A. Havemeyer, as President of the Newport Golf Club [at this time, he was also the President of the USGA], and several of the other members are anxious to have these links the very best that can be made.
(New York Times, 14 July 1895, p. 19)
“Anxious to have … links the very best that can be made,” did Havemeyer bring Park to town because he doubted the quality of Davis’s new layout? Was Park to inspect Davis’s new holes and “offer suggestions regarding them”?
An ambiguous British newspaper item might be taken to imply as much: “Willie Park, the English golfer, is to inspect the Newport grounds and pass his professional opinion upon them before he leaves for England” (Boxing World and Mirror of Life [London, England], 27 July 1895, p. 3). It is not clear what the phrase “inspect the Newport grounds means” – that is, whether it means he was to inspect the new nine-hole layout or to inspect the rest of the grounds in terms of its potential for development of future golf holes.
An item by Fitzpatrick in the New York Sun was similarly ambiguous:
Park has visited and played over most of the golf courses in this section of the country.
He has also laid out a great many new ones and given suggestions on old ones which have been adopted.
He has been requested by several of the Newport Golf Club members to visit their fine new course before leaving this country and he will go down there tomorrow to spend two or three days.
(Sun [New York], 14 July 1895, p. 7)
Following observations about how Park has laid out new courses and suggested revisions for old ones, on the one hand, with the observation that he has been asked to visit the new Newport course, on the other, might be taken to imply that Newport members wanted him to evaluate their new course and reassure them that it was adequate.
We know, mind you, that in advance of Park’s visit, Fitzpatrick had already described Davis’s layout as the “fine new course” at Newport (Sun [New York], 14 July 1895, p. 7). And six weeks before that, the Boston Globe observed: “The new golf links at the [Newport] Country Club are completed and are perhaps the finest on this side of the water” (Boston Globe, 2 June 1895, p. 18). There seems to have been no lack of confidence in the merit of Davis’s new layout.
Rather than seeking reassurance from Park that Newport’s “fine new course” was “perhaps the f inest on this side of the water,” Havemeyer and his fellow directors of the Newport Golf Club probably wanted to learn from Park how he would advise the Club to proceed in developing an 18-hole layout. Could it be done on their current property?
Newspaper reports make clear that it was well known that the Newport Golf Club was ambitious to have the best golf course in the United States, and a question posed to Willie Park by a Providence newspaper suggests that it was also well-known – at least locally – that the Club measured its course against the standard set at Shinnecock Hills:
The Telegram asked … his [Park’s] opinion of the Newport links and their comparison with those of the Shinnecock club of Southampton, L.I., to which the following answer was given:
“I consider the Shinnecock links the best in this country, as the soil there is sandy and as well fitted for a course as those in Scotland.
The Newport course is a very good one, but more in the nature of an inland one, the soil here having clay on it, but with a top dressing of sand, it could be much improved.”
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 18 July 1895, p. 6)
A reporter for the New York Sun seems to have participated in the same conversation:
Willie Park, the ex-champion of Great Britain, who visited and played over the [Newport] links, … was very well pleased with the course, although in time it will be far better than it is now.
“It is an excellent course,” he said, “but does not possess so many elements of a seaside course as the links at Shinnecock.
It is more in the nature of an inland one, the soil in many places being very clayey, but with a top dressing of sand it would be greatly improved.”
(Sun [New York]. 22 July 1895, p. 7)
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Park had told Fitzpatrick before going to Newport that he greatly admired the Shinnecock Hills layout:
The golf links at Shinnecock are, I think, the finest in the country.
The sandy soil and natural conditions favor them exceedingly.
A great deal of care has been expended on them and they are as fine as I would care to play over in Scotland.
(Sun [New York], 14 July 1895, p. 7).
Park must have been told by Davis that he had laid out the original nine hole course at Shinnecock Hills and that a good number of his holes were still part of the 18-hole 1895 layout. The new course comprised about five of Davis’s original 1891 holes, seven of John Cuthbert’s 1892 holes, and six holes added by Willie Dunn at the beginning of 1895 (see my essay “John Cuthbert: the Unknown Designer of the Shinnecock Hills Golf course.”).
The fact that the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club had just opened its new 18-hole layout no doubt lit a f ire under the Newport Golf Club’s directors. Their intention to develop an 18-hole championship course at Newport seems to have been formed at least by the time of Park’s July visit, for just days after Park left Newport, the Boston Globe reported for the first time about the Club’s expansion plans: “The links at the Newport Country Club now comprise nine holes, and by another summer they will be increased to 18 holes” (Boston Globe, 21 July 1895, p. 21).
If Park’s work at Newport included an evaluation of Davis’s nine-hole course, it was probably with a view to determining whether the best way to developing an 18-hole layout was to lay out 18 new holes or simply to add nine more holes to Davis’s layout.
Park’s comments to reporters for the Telegram and New York Sun read as though they were part of a formal report he had prepared for Havemeyer and Club directors:
The Newport course is a very good one ….
The hazards are placed in proper positions, the distances of the holes are proper, and also give very good tees with the green ….
The nature of the putting greens are true and comparatively easy to putt on.
(The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 18 July 1895, p. 6)
The phrase “give very good tees with the green” makes no sense and is probably a misquotation. Since tee boxes in the 1890s were generally laid out within steps of the previous putting green, perhaps Park actually said, “the distances of the holes are proper and give very good tees near the green.” It may be that the New York Sun reports what Park actually said: “The hazards are well arranged and very correctly placed. The distances of the holes are also excellent, and the putting greens and tees are in the very best condition” (Sun [New York]. 22 July 1895, p. 7).
But whatever Park’s actual words might have been, his item-by-item approval of the Newport layout suggests that he recognized Davis to be an excellent golf course designer – a recognition that Park extended only to the best, for, as he would explain a few months later in The Game of Golf:
The laying out of a golf course is by no means a simple task.
Great skill and judgment and a thorough acquaintance with the game are absolutely necessary to determine the best positions for the respective holes and teeing grounds and the situation of the hazards.
(The Game of Golf, p. 194)
In Park’s estimation, Davis had demonstrated at Newport “great skill and judgement and a thorough acquaintance with the game.”
Genuinely pleased with the existing nine-hole course, Park seems to have recommended that Davis’s layout be retained as part of the 18-hole championship course of the future. We know, for instance, that he made a practical recommendation for a long-term programme of turf management that would improve the course – “the soil in many places [is] very clayey, but with a top dressing of sand it would be greatly improved” – and he explicitly affirmed that “in time it will be far better than it is now” (Sun [New York]. 22 July 1895, p. 7). These comments look toward a future in which the Davis layout remained central to the Club’s golf.
Park’s official blessing of Davis’s work was probably behind the Boston Globe’s language in its report that “The links at the Newport Country Club now comprise nine holes, and by another summer they will be increased to 18 holes”: the new course would require not the laying out 18 new holes but rather the addition of nine new holes to the existing nine holes (Boston Globe, 21 July 1895, p. 21).
Similarly, right after Park’s visit, the New York Sun also reported that the Davis course would be the basis of course development for the foreseeable future:
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W.F. Davis, who has been connected with the Newport Golf Club since its organization about two years ago, has been particularly busy during the past few months in laying out the new course.
Beyond a few minor improvements, which will be made from time to time, the links are thoroughly completed ….
(Sun [New York, 22 July 1895, p. 7)
But what about the nine new holes to which so many newspaper reports allude?
Collaboration in Newport
Early in his visit to the United States in 1895, Park understood that the golf matches he was playing were having a tremendous effect on the promotion of the game, and he seems also to have understood that his course designs might have a similar effect.
When he published in an American newspaper a detailed, hole-by-hole description of his course for the Astors, for instance, he concluded his description of the layout (and his explanation of its maintenance requirements) with the following observation about article: “To some extent, it may be a guide to owners of country places who may wish to play golf” (Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5).
As he wrote the article, Park was aware that he was implicitly writing a guide to golf course architecture.
Park’s missionary role as exemplar of the way game should be played and as exemplar of state of-the-art golf course design was appreciated by American golfers:
American golf will be vastly improved by visits of first-class professional players such as Willie Park made last summer.
By such visits, golfers in this country would have abundant opportunity to play with and be taught by men who are masters of the game.
Another desirable object to be gained by such visits would be the proper laying out of golf courses and the improving of those which have been planned under the direction of men whose knowledge of the requirements of the game was somewhat doubtful.
(The Exchange, cited in The Herald [Carroll, Iowa], 3 August 1897, p. 6)
When Park met Davis at the end of his four and a half month visit to the United States in 1895, he must have been ready, willing, and able to discuss with him the whole range of challenges to be overcome in the American Northeast if one hoped to layout an inland golf course that would be capable of providing a test of golf comparable to the test provided by the traditional links courses on which they had each learned the game.
Both Park and Davis must have recognized that the largest part of the future of golf course architecture in North America, the British Isles, and the rest of the world would have to be focused on the design of inland golf courses.
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With Davis and Park spending as many as four days together as the latter simultaneously played golf on the former’s new layout and prepared a report on a possible 18-hole layout for Havemeyer and the directors of the Newport Golf Club, the two young golf professionals (they were in their early thirties) no doubt discussed the architectural features of Davis’s new layout (which Park celebrated in his discussion with reporters) and no doubt also discussed best practices in inland golf course maintenance (which Park also mentioned to reporters).
And they probably did so in the context of considering the possible development of nine more holes on the property owned by the Newport Country Club, for that was the question about which the Club directors most wanted advice from Park.
During their six tours of the existing nine-hole course during their two exhibition matches, the two men played holes adjacent to the land available for the new holes and so Park inevitably got a good look at the eastern part of the property that the Club was interested to develop for golf. During this time together, the two golf professionals could easily have pointed out to each other where they thought golf holes might go.
Davis and Park may even have walked the eastern part of the property together, contemplating the possibility of laying out holes here or there.
Park would write a few months later that the best aid to the planning of a new layout is to attain a bird’s-eye-view of the property:
The number of holes having been decided upon, the next thing to settle is their position, and the position of the teeing grounds.
It is desirable that the first teeing ground and the last putting green should be near the clubhouse so that members may neither have far to walk to begin their game nor far to walk after it is finished.
These two preliminary points settled, a bird’s-eye view of the ground from some eminence may probably suggest the positions of the other holes and teeing grounds.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 196-97)
Achieving a bird’s-eye view of a property was not always possible, but it was easy to come by at Newport. Surely Park and Davis climbed to the top of the grand clubhouse to survey the eastern part of the Club’s property lying south of the polo field (the polo field was not available for golf, for there were great hopes that this part of the property could be drained properly to allow the development of a premier polo facility with surrounding infrastructure, including stables for horses and grandstands for spectators).
From the magnificent new clubhouse built on the high ground of the Club’s property, Davis and Park could see the land that was available for the new holes. They would have had a view of everything – to their left, the polo field and the pond near the pump station, and to their right (as seen in the 1922 view from the clubhouse reproduced below), open ditches, mounds, rough ground, and the gentle rise and fall of the land.
Figure 232 A 1922 photograph taken by Henry O. Havemeyer from the clubhouse shows the view of the southern half of the eastern part of the property that Davis and Park would have observed from the same vantage point.
With a view such as the one above, Davis and Park could have discussed all sorts of potential routings for the nine holes that were to be added to Davis’s layout.
Although the new nine-hole layout that probably began to take shape at this time would not be laid out until late in 1896 and early in 1897, we know that the plan had been to lay out nine new holes between the end of the 1895 season and the beginning of the 1896 season, for it was reported in July of 1895 that there would be nine new holes built “by another summer” (Boston Globe, 21 July 1895, p. 21).
Furthermore, as the Club prepared to close for the 1895 season, newspapers reported about its construction plans for the 1895-96 winter:
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On Nov. 15, the Newport Golf Club will be closed for the season.
A stairway and path leading from the club house to the polo grounds will be made before next spring.
Work upon the interior of the club house will begin during December, and upon the grounds in February.
(Sun [New York], 4 November 1895, p. 9)
The reference to “work … upon the grounds in February” was probably a reference to plans to lay out the new nine holes mentioned in newspapers in July of 1895, for when February of 1896 eventually arrived, the New York Times reported that the plans for the new nine holes in question had just changed:
The Newport golf course will not be enlarged to eighteen holes this coming year [that is, 1896].
That idea has been abandoned.
The [existing] nine-hole course is a long one and one of the best in the country.
(New York Times, 16 February 1896, p. 6)
And so, I think it is reasonable to suppose that the four days that Davis and Park spent together in Newport in mid-July of 1895 were probably the occasion for some degree of architectural collaboration between them (whether formal or informal) regarding the expansion of the nine hole Newport course to 18 holes.
If they indeed talked about possible designs for new holes at Newport, what might they have had in mind?
Since Park thoroughly approved of the Davis layout, might they have planned more of the same for the new nine holes: a plethora of artificial hazards placed precisely as prescribed by the tenets of penal design theory?
Or might they have begun to talk about alternatives to blanketing courses with cross bunkers – especially the Dunn family’s cop bunkers – as Park himself would do several months later in The Game of Golf?
Can we guess at what they might have discussed by inspecting the architectural work that Davis and Park did between their mid-July 1895 meeting and Davis’s laying out of the new nine holes at Newport at the end of 1896 and beginning of 1897?
Collaboration in Vermont
Three weeks before Park visited Newport, he spent several days in Vermont playing golf on – and simultaneously inspecting closely – a nine-hole inland course laid out the year before on the shores of Lake Champlain by none other than Willie Davis.
When he returned to New York City, Park explained to a reporter for the New York Times what he had been up to:
“Willie” Park returned to this city the middle of last week, after a visit of two days at Mr. H. Walter Webb’s country place at Sherburne on Lake Champlain, Vt.
Mr. Webb has a fine private golf course of nine holes laid out over his farm, and “Willie” Park was invited to inspect it and play over the links.
The course is one and a half miles around, well supplied with good natural brakers, and has some excellent long drives.
Mr. Webb was well pleased with Park’s style of play and they went around the course several times.
(New York Times, 1 July 1895, p. 3)
The New York Times reporter was surprisingly sloppy: there are at least three errors in this item.
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The golf course was “well supplied” with bunkers, not “brakers.”
The Webb farm in Vermont was at Shelburne, not “Sherburne.”
Figure 233 Dr. William Seward Webb (1851-1926), 1902.
Figure 234 “Mrs. Webb,” a.k.a. Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt (1860-1936).
And this “country place” was owned by Dr. William Seward Webb, not “H. Walter Webb” (Henry Walter Webb, the brother of W. Seward Webb, owned a country place at Southampton, Long Island).
The fabulously wealthy Seward Webb (a railway magnate married to the fabulously wealthy Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt, sister of William Kissen Vanderbilt and Cornelius Vanderbilt) had developed a large estate – known as Shelburne Farms – on a grand scale, combining thirty-two separate farms into a single property, converting a country house into a palace, and developing the landscape on the shores of Lake Champlain into extraordinary parks, gardens and outbuildings designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York City’s Central Park.
Early in 1894, the Webbs commissioned Willie Davis to lay out a nine-hole course at Shelburne Farms:
The links have nine holes, the chief hazard being a deep ravine, which is crossed twice.
At places, the course comes within 200 feet of Lake Champlain, of which fine views may be had from some of the putting greens, especially on the hill.
Mrs. Webb … is a skilful player.
Her approach play is accurate and she is a fair driver.
(Sun [New York], 10 August 1895)
“Mrs. Webb” seems to have been a keener golfer than her husband. In fact, she was widely recognized as an enthusiastic devotee of the Royal and Ancient game.
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She was wont to play “nearly every day” when on vacation in the summer of 1895 at Lenox, Massachusetts, where those who saw her play observed: “There are not many women who really play well. Mrs. W. Seward Webb is one of the best in the country” (New York Times, 23 June 1895, p. 12); Daily Times [Davenport, Iowa], 17 August 1895, p. 6).
And there is a hint that she was the one (rather than her husband) who had decided in 1894 to have a golf course laid out at Shelburne Farms: “Mrs. John Jacob Astor and Mrs. Seward Webb … and many others are noted for their good playing. Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Webb are exceedingly proficient at the game, and, as they are both women who are able to have golf links laid out on their country places, can practice unceasingly” (Wheeling Sunday Register [West Virginia], 28 July 1895, p. 9, emphasis added).
As we know, Mrs. Astor (Ava Lowle Willing) and her husband had invited Park to stay with them for a week in mid-May of 1895, and among their guests at that time were the Webbs:
During the stay, he [Park] gave lessons in the game to Mr. and Mrs. Astor …. [and] he was also introduced to Dr. Webb, whose wife is a Vanderbilt.
On the Doctor’s invitation, he stayed three days at the family residence at Shelburne, which is about 200 miles from New York.
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During this visit also he gave lessons in the game and found the Doctor and Mrs. Webb and her daughter apt pupils.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2).
The newspaper item above accords agency to Dr. Webb regarding the hiring of Park, but I suspect that it was Mrs. Astor who put the word in the ear of her “intimate friend” Mrs. Webb that Park was the man to expand her course to 18 holes (Omaha Daily Bee [Nebraska], 24 November 1895, p. 21).
Arriving at Newport in mid-July, Park found himself officially evaluating the architecture of another Davis-designed courses. And his mandate a few weeks before at Shelburne Farms had been the same: consider whether and how Davis’s nine-hole course might be expanded into an 18-hole course.
And so, it seems likely – if not inevitable – that Park’s discussion with Davis of the latter’s work at Newport would have included observations about his work at Shelburne Farms. Furthermore, since they both knew the Shelburne property so well, Park was probably able to explain in some detail to Davis where on the estate he planned to add nine new holes and how he planned to integrate them into Davis’s course.
They were discussing the same sort of project at Newport.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, to learn that the person who went to Shelburne Farms in October of 1895 to build Park’s new holes was none other than Davis himself.
The 18-hole course at Shelburne Farms became an instance of architectural collaboration between Davis and Park – and not just because the first nine holes were laid out by Davis and the second nine holes by Park: it seems likely both that they discussed the new holes to be added and that Park recommended to the Webbs that Davis lay them out.
Davis's Nine-Hole Vermont Design
Davis’s Shelburne Farms course seems to have been laid out early in 1894.
The Webbs were among the millionaires that Davis met at Newport who asked him to lay out private courses for them. In an essay dating from early 1896, Davis mentions the golf courses he laid out after arriving at Newport in March of 1893:
Since I came to Newport, I have laid out links for the Country Club, Brookline, Mass; Country Club, Providence, R.I; Mr. Jas. Lawrence, Groton, Mass.; Dr. W. Seward Webb, Shelburne Farms, Vt.; Messrs. Ogden Mills and W.B. Dinsmore, Staatsburg, N.Y.; at Hot Springs, Virginia; for Mrs. Wm. Goddard, East Greenwich, R.I.; and George W. Vanderbilt, Biltmore, N.C.
(William Frederick Davis, autobiographical statement, undated, courtesy of Royal Liverpool Golf Club)
His list of the courses he laid out seems to be chronological. He began his work at Newport in march of 1893; he laid out nine holes for the Country club of Providence during the winter of 1893-94; the course at Staatsburg was laid out around the same time; the nine-hole course in “Hot Springs, Virginia,” seems to have been laid out by the summer of 1894 (when a newspaper refers to the imminent formation of a golf club in connection with the Hot Springs Hotel); a nine hole course was laid out for “George W. Vanderbilt, Biltmore, N.C.,” in December of 1895 and early January of 1896.
Ogden Mills (of Staatsburg, New York), the Lawrence brothers James and Prescott (of Groton, Massachusetts), many of the Vanderbilt siblings, and the Webbs had all met Davis at Newport (Ogden Mills and brothers Cornelius and William Vanderbilt were founding members of the Newport Golf Club). Many of them were introduced to golf on Davis’s Newport golf course and many of them received lessons from him. They attended his exhibition matches. They hired him as architect.
The Webbs’ golf course was first mentioned in the newspapers in the summer of 1894 when various newspapers carried a story about the rapid development of golf in America: “Among private grounds [is] … one at Shelbourne Farms [sic], Dr. Seward Webb’s country place, in Vermont” (Indianapolis News [Indiana], 30 June 1894, p. 11). This course had presumably been completed at least some weeks, if not several months, before its mention in this 30 June 1894 newspaper item.
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I suspect that the course was commissioned at least by April of 1894 when Webb formally “invited the members of the New York Coaching Club to be his guests at his country estate, Shelburne farms, Vermont, from June 9 to June 12” (Burlington Clipper [Vermont], 27 April 1894, p. 8).
A June drive was a big annual event of the New York Coaching Club, but this one was a bit bigger than usual: “The contemplated trip has attracted much interest, not only in New York but in coaching circles in Europe, many believing it cannot be done on our poor roads” (Bennington Banner [Vermont], 5 June 1894, p. 1).
The large coach that would carry the Club members was appropriately named “Pioneer” (seen below), for there was a spirit of pioneering associated with the event: “The trip will take four days and, if successful, will be the longest drive ever attempted by the club” (Evening World [New York], 3 May 1894, p. 4).
Figure 235 Members of the New York Coach Club set out on a drive in the coach named “Pioneer” on 12 May 1893.
The question of who would host the June 1894 event had been quite competitive:
In talking of a long-distance trip this spring, the New York Coaching Club considered a trip to Newport, R.I., and Shelburne Farms.
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An exchange says that though assured of the welcome they would get if the course to Newport were adopted, the promises of W. Seward Webb offered the more enchanting prospects.
He tendered the Club entertainment at his country mansion at the farms for as many days as they might choose to stay.
On formally considering Dr. Webb’s invitation, it was at once accepted.
(Burlington Free Press [Vermont], 7 May 1894, p. 8)
Evidently, the entertainment promised by the Webbs was not to be missed, and so members of the Coaching Club who were unable to undertake the four-day road trip travelled to Shelburne Farms by train.
I suspect that the Webbs’ offered to have a golf course ready by the beginning of June so that it could be used by their fellow Coaching Club members. Indeed, promising a golf course may have been necessary to counter the use of the Davis course that Newport members of the Coaching Club could offer.
Note that making the four-day 340-mile journey to Shelburne Farms from New York on rough roads in a large coach called “Pioneer,” to be drawn by 22 four-horse teams (groups of them moved ahead by train to be fresh for the several stages of each day’s trip), were some of the Webb family’s best golfing friends from Newport: founding Newport members Prescott Lawrence (who planned the route to Shelburne Farms on behalf of the Coaching Club), Theodore Havemeyer, Perry Belmont, Ogden Mills, and William K. Vanderbilt, as well as Country Club of Brookline golf enthusiast Nathaniel Thayer (who had also joined the Newport Golf Club by the end of 1893).
Laid out sometime in the spring of 1894, the course would seem to have been designed before Davis played any of Willie Dunn’s 1893 cop-bunkered American courses (of which there were half a dozen, or so).
Recall that Davis wrote to the editor of Golf (London) on 26 November 1893 about his July match against Dunn at Newport: “Dunn is the first professional I have seen for over twelve years, and … my time is so much taken up in workshop and giving lessons that I have no time to practise the game” (Golf [London], vol 7 no 170 [15 December 1893], p. 218). Davis seems not to have had time “to practise the game” anywhere in 1893 other than on his own Newport course.
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And his first play of 1894 was against newly arrived Willie Campbell at the Country Club at Brookline on May 17th and 18th. Campbell lengthened the country club course in the spring of 1894, but the course on which they played their match may have been laid out by Davis during the winter of 1893-94 (see my essay “Willie Davis and the Country Club at Brookline” at donaldjchilds.ca).
It would not be until September of 1894 that Davis would play the 12-hole Shinnecock Hills layout to which Dunn added several cop bunkers in 1893 (including the Bastion Bunker added to the 5th hole of Cuthbert’s 12-hole 1892 course, which was the 2nd hole of Davis’s nine-hole 1891 course). Dunn would not add any holes of his own to the course until 1895, when he designed six new holes to create the 18-hole layout that would host the 1896 US Open.
To have the Webbs’ course ready for play in the spring of 1894, Davis must have been at Shelburne Farms sometime between the end of the 1893 season and the spring of 1894 – well before he began to play on courses that could have introduced him to Dunn-style cop bunkers. And so, the Shelburne Farms Golf Links were probably laid out according to the tenets of penal golf course architecture that Davis had worked out on his own and deployed at Shinnecock Hills and Staatsburg.
We know that Davis made notable use of a ravine – “The links have nine holes, the chief hazard being a deep ravine, which is crossed twice” – and we can infer that this “deep ravine” served as the type of cross bunker that was a staple of penal golf course architecture: a fairway-wide hazard requiring a forced carry (Sun [New York], 10 August 1895).
Note that according to the National Park Service, the Shelburne Farms 18-hole Davis-Park course completed in the fall of 1895 “was reduced in size to the western- and northernmost 9 holes by c. 1910 and allowed to revert to pasture during World War II due to gasoline shortages” (National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 7). These western- and northernmost holes may have been the holes that constituted Davis’s 1894 layout.
The scorecard from this circa-1910 nine-hole course is shown below, allowing us to see that two consecutive holes were routed across a ravine: the 5th hole was named “Ravine,” and a note about the very next hole indicates that the “ravine on [the] 6th hole” was “out of bounds” – “except in [the] cleared right of way.”
Figure 236 undated post-1910 scorecard for the Shelburne Farms Links.
The 5th and 6th holes of the later nine-hole course were probably Davis’s two “Ravine” holes.
Similarly, a hole on the circa-1910 course (its shortest) was called “Hill-Top,” and we know that Davis put one of his putting greens on top of a prominent hill: “Fine views may be had [of Lake Champlain] from some of the putting greens, especially on the hill” (Sun [New York], 10 August 1895). The 1894 hole and the circa-1910 hole may well have been the same.
As we can see on the scorecard above, the 1st hole of the circa-1910 nine-hole course was named “Lake.” Furthermore, the scorecard indicates that the “beach” on this 1st hole was “out of bounds” (Sun [New York], 10 August 1895). Similarly, the “beach on [the] … 9th hole” was “out of bounds” (Sun [New York], 10 August 1895). And so, we know that portions of the 1st and 9th holes were so close to Lake Champlain that golf shots occasionally strayed onto North Beach.
Note that regarding Davis’s 1894 layout, it was reported that “at places, the course comes within 200 feet of Lake Champlain” (Sun [New York], 10 August 1895). The same newspaper reported a day later that the Webbs’ course “has nine holes and … in some places … borders on Lake Champlain” (Sun [New York], 11 August 1895, p. 14). And so, we might suspect that the 1st and 9th holes of the Davis course were the 1st and 9th holes of the circa-1910 nine-hole course.
There are good reasons to suspect that the nine-hole course that existed from 1910 to World War II was essentially Davis’s original nine-hole course.
Yet if Davis’s 1st and 9th holes were in fact the 1st and 9th holes of the circa-1910 nine-hole course, it is clear that the original holes were later modified.
On the later nine-hole course, the 1st tee and 9th green were located on a high part of the lawn on the east side of Shelburne House: “Two shallow terraced hills, the site of the 9th hole [putting green] and 1st tee of the Golf Links, lie above the lilacs to the south of the northwest branch of the entrance drive” (National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 21).
The 1930s photograph below shows the 9th green in question, the 1st tee apparently being located on a terrace above the terrace that hosted the putting green.
Figure 237 Circa 1930s photograph of golfers and caddis on the 9th green of the Shelburne Farms Links.
Seen in the lower left corner of the photograph above are lilac trees (planted around 1900). They were protected by a local rule, as explained on the scorecard: “Ball in lilacs of 1st and 9th holes must be lifted clear with penalty of one stroke.”
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The putting green seen in the photograph above was not Davis’s 9th green, for according to the National Park Service, the “original 9th green” was located below the terraces in question:
On the east side of Shelburne House, the Lawn descends in a series of rolling steps to North Gate Road.
At its lowest level, the Lawn features a wide, flat section that currently serves as the site of an annual dressage performance.
This section is the site of the original 9th green of the Shelburne Farms Golf Links ….
(National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne Farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 21)
The flat section of the lawn hosting the annual dressage performance is shown below in a 1903 photograph, which also shows that the elevated area of the lawn to the right of the lilac trees had not yet been developed as a putting green and tee box (as is evident in the photograph below, the site of the future 9th green and future 1st tee was still full of trees in 1903).
Figure 238 Edwin C. Powell, “Shelburne Farms: An Ideal Country Place,” Country Life in America, vol 3 no 4 (February 1903), p. 156.
The original Davis 9th green located on the flat part of the Shelburne House lawn may be visible in the bottom foreground of the photograph above as a curving area of dark grass – perhaps the dense grass of a putting green.
Referring to the map shown below, the National Park Service observes:
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the Shelburne Farms Golf Links extended from the Shelburne House Lawn (#27), past the Teahouse (#22), and the North Seawall (#21) to Elm Swamp and a then-cleared area north of North Gate Road encompassing the current Dairy Complex (#18) and surrounding pastures.
(National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 7)
Figure 239 National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne Farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 51.
On the map above, I highlight in red the lawn of Shelburne House, as well as the numbers indicating the Teahouse, the North Seawall, and the Dairy Complex. I outline in orange the 55 acres of Elm Swamp. And I outline in green the pastures around the Dairy Complex north of North Gate Road.
Together, the areas outlined in orange and green mark the approximate area through which Davis’s nine-hole golf course was routed in 1894.
The National Park Service also observes:
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Today, the only visible sections [of the former golf course] are the putting green, 9th hole, and 1st tee located on the east side of the Shelburne House Lawn, the 1st hole [putting green] and 2nd tee located on the northeast corner of Elm Swamp.
(National Historic Landmark Nomination: Shelburne Farms, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, p. 7)
The top of the map above is north, and so the northeast corner of Elm Swamp where the 1st green and 2nd tee were located would seem to have been south of North Gate Road just below the Dairy Complex.
The areas outlined above appear on the contemporary aerial photograph shown below.
Figure 240 Annotated undated contemporary aerial photograph of Shelburne Farms.
On the photograph immediately above, and on the map on the preceding page, I have also labelled a marshy area in Elm Swamp not far from the North Seawall.
Although this marsh appears on the photograph above as a depression comprising dead or dry grass, this area becomes a small pond in wet weather. And when Lake Champlain overflows the North Seawall, this area becomes a large pond.
See the photographs below.
Figure 241 Contemporary photographs of the marshy area of Elm Swamp.
In the mid-1890s, the Webbs seem to have maintained here “a large private pond” that they used in the winter for skating parties, as in December of 1896:
Col. And Mrs. W. Seward Webb are to entertain the Vanderbilt family at Shelburne Farms on Christmas.
A new skating rink, 250 feet long and 95 feet wide, has been constructed in what is known as the Elm Swamp east of the residence.
The rink is not covered.
(Burlington Free Press [Vermont], 19 February 1895, p. 5; 21 December 1896, p. 8)
And the scorecard for the circa-1910 nine-hole golf course indicates that there was a “pond on [the] 1st and 9th holes” that served as a “WATER HAZARD” for these two holes that ran through Elm Swamp.
Figure 242 Edwin C. Powell, “Shelburne Farms: An Ideal Country Place,” Country Life in America, vol 3 no 4 (February 1903), p. 156.
Yet a 1903 photograph (seen to the left) shows this area perfectly dry and populated with more than 20 healthy elm trees.
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Elm Swamp was crossed in various directions by ditches. We can see that at certain points in the history of the estate, these ditches effectively drained the 55 acres of Elm Swamp.​
And these ditches were also mentioned on the Shelburne Farms Links scorecard: “WATER HAZARDS: Ditch on 1st, 7th and 9th holes.”
The 1927 aerial photograph presented below shows some of the ditches draining Elm Swamp towards a culvert that ran through the North Seawall into the lake. I have annotated the photograph to mark areas on it that have been mentioned above.
Figure 243 Annotated 1927 aerial photograph showing Elm Swamp.
A report about the Davis course in the New York Times implies that Davis routed his course across many natural hazards: “The course is one and a half miles round, well supplied with good natural brakers [“brakers” is presumably a misprint of “bunkers”], and has some excellent long drives” (New York Times, 1 July 1895, p. 3). The word “bunker” was often used as a synonym for “hazard” in the 1890s, so the fact that the course was said to be “well supplied” with “natural bunkers” probably means that it had other fairway-wide cross hazards in addition to the ravine – natural “bunkers” such as the “Ditch on 1st, 7th and 9th holes and [the] pond on 1st and 9th holes.” Furthermore, the mention of the course as having “some excellent long drives” probably refers to the need for long drives to carry such natural cross bunkers.
Note, however, that the Davis course was said to be “abounding in natural and artificial hazards” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5, emphasis added). And so, we know that in addition to the “deep ravine” that two holes crossed and other “natural bunkers” (such as pre-existing ditches and a pond), there were also “artificial hazards” built on certain holes.
And since Davis had not yet encountered examples of the Dunn family’s style of cop bunkers, “artificial hazards” that he built at Shelburne Farms would probably have been of the same sort that he built at Shinnecock Hills (fairway-crossing hedges and ditches with raised sand banks) and at Staatsburg (sod-faced stone walls fronted by a ditch filled with sand).
Note, however, that Webb had removed the many stone fences that originally bounded the fields of the dozens of farms he purchased to create Shelburne Farms. He intended that his property should look and feel like a park, and so, well before Davis arrived to lay out nine holes at Shelburne Farms in 1894, Webb had removed the kind of fences that Davis had used as cross hazards at both Staatsburg and Newport.
Yet there is another possibility to consider: the “artificial hazards” mentioned in a New York Sun article in advance of Davis’s visit in October of 1895 (to lay out Park’s design) could have been built by Peter Blair during his three days with the Webbs in August of 1895.
Park, Blair, Davis and Nine More Holes for Shelburne Farms
From the beginning, the Shelburne Farms Golf Links were well-received and well-used.
The Los Angeles Herald observed in the summer of 1895: “Dr. W. Seward Webb has a good private links on his Shelburne Falls farm, though it is only a nine-hole course” (Los Angeles Herald, 18 August 1895, p. 16). The St. Alban’s Daily Messenger called it “one of the finest links in the country” (St. Alban’s Daily Messenger [Vermont], 3 September 1895, p. 2). The New York Herald agreed: “Dr. W. Seward Webb’s links at Shelburne Farms … was originally laid out by Davis and is considered one of the finest in this country” (Herald [New York], 18 October 1895).
Figure 244 Amy Bend depicted playing ice golf at Shelburne Farms during the winter of 1895-96. San Francisco Examiner, 12 January 1896, p. 23. If this image is drawn from a photograph (as were many sketches appearing in newspapers during the 1890s), to Miss Bend’s left may be the seawall of North Beach and trees in Elm Swamp and to her right may be Saxton Point.
The Webb family played golf regularly and did so all year round. During the winter of 1895-96, for instance, play seems to have been extended from the land links onto Lake Champlain (probably at Elm Swamp):
The Seward Webbs, whose Shelbourne [sic] farms in New England is the ideal country place in the world, have a lovely winter golf course that lies over a frozen lake.
When the land is passed, and the player reaches the lake, she has her caddy slip on skates and the two strike out after the ball….
There are no obstructions on the ice like fences, but there are snow drifts that require a frequent lofting of the ball.
(Morning Times [Washington, D.C.], 12 January 1896, p. 15)
Their new golf course on dry land was used by all and sundry. On the one hand, “certain upper-rank servants” were allowed to play the course (Joe Sherman, The House at Shelburne Farms: The Story of One of America’s Great Country Estates [1986], p. 38). And even the caddies were given opportunities to play, as in the fall of 1897 when Eliza Webb arranged for her family and guests to caddie for the regular caddies:
A novel golf party occupied the links at Shelburne Farms Thursday afternoon when Mrs. W. Seward Webb, daughter Frederica, and several gusts exchanged positions with the dozen boys who carry golf sticks for them and allowed the boys, who are from 12 to 16 years of age, to play the game.
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(Troy Northern Budget [Vermont], 14 November 1897, p. 39)
On the other hand, the main players were the large parties of guests regularly invited to stay at Shelburne Farms:
A characteristic of Dr. Webb’s manner of entertaining is the perfect freedom which is given each guest to follow the bent of his individual tastes. Every resource for enjoyment is at his disposal.
No matter how large the number, there is a horse for each one who wishes to enjoy the shaded drives which spread like meshes of a net over the whole domain.
Then there is one of the finest golf links in the country, which has been very much in requisition this summer for those who are inclined toward this sport.
(St. Albans Daily Messenger [Vermont], 3 September 1895, p. 2)
And the Webbs would soon regularly make the course available for tournament play and recreational play to members of nearby Burlington’s Waubanakee Golf Club, which was organized in 1897.
The Shelburne Farms Links may have been particularly well-used in 1895: in October of that year it was reported that Willie Davis was returning to Shelburne Farms Golf Links to “repair any defects which may have developed since the spring” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5). It is not clear what these possible “defects … developed since spring” might have been except damage to tees and greens from heavy use.
It was an interesting item in the New York Sun in October of 1895 that provided this news about Davis and Shelburne Farms, and it seems likely that the news in this item was based on information supplied by Davis himself to the Sun’s golf writer Fitzpatrick: “W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, left the city [New York] yesterday for Dr. Seward Webb’s place, Shelburne Farms, Vt., where he will be employed for some time making improvements on the links” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5).
We recall that the existing nine-hole course by Davis was said to be “abounding in natural and artificial hazards” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5). And we learn about its grass:
The turf is superb, Dr. Webb … having devoted much study to the improvement of the grass land.
Willie Park, who played over the links with Dr. Webb, said that the putting greens were the best he had ever seen, here or abroad.
(Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5)
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If the information in this newspaper item was indeed supplied by Davis, we can infer that Park himself was probably the one who told Davis that he believed “the putting greens were the best he had ever seen.”
We know that Park had spent June 24th and 25th of 1895 not just playing golf with Dr. and Mrs. Webb on the Davis course but also judging the quality of the original nine holes and then deciding to add to them nine new holes of his own design. One presumes that at Newport, in addition to complimenting Davis on the quality of the greens at Shelburne Farms, Park also discussed with him his ideas for adding nine new holes to the Shelburne Farms Links.
When Park stayed with the Webbs, it is not clear whether he thought that he would be able to lay out the new holes himself.
At the beginning of his 1895 visit to the United States, Park had intimated to the golf writer for the New York Times that he planned to return to Scotland in the late spring or early summer (he had originally planned to return to Scotland in time to play in the 1895 Open Championship on June 12th and 13th at St Andrews), but he also indicated that he hoped “to return to America in the Fall,” and “possibly enter the professional championship tournament of America which will be played … on the Newport links” (New York Times, 28 April 1895, p. 27).
Before visiting the Webbs, of course, Park had changed his plans to return to Scotland for the Open: he extended his stay in the United States so that he could play high stakes matches against other professional golfers and so that he could design more golf courses – including one for the Webbs. When staying with the Webbs at the end of June, if he was still planning at that time to return for the inaugural US Open Championship at Newport in the fall, Park may have told the Webbs that he would return to Shelburne Farms in October to lay out their new nine holes.
Park certainly knew before he went down to Newport in mid-July, however, that he would not be returning to the United States in the fall, as he explained to Fitzpatrick of the New York Sun: “I am sorry that I cannot be in America to play in the championship contest at Newport in October, but, if possible, I hope to return to this country next June for a further visit of a few months” (Sun [New York], 14 July 1895, p. 7).
What would Park do about the work pending at Shelburne Farms?
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The Webbs probably did not want to wait a full year for Park to return and extend their layout to 18 holes.
Park was back in Scotland by the end of July, but he seems to have left plans in place to provide the Webbs with a new layout. It was probably before he left the United States that he arranged for his agent Peter Blair to go to Shelburne Farms sometime near the end of July or beginning of August:
Peter Blair, the representative in this country of Willie Park, Jr., spent two or three days a short time ago at Mr. W. Seward Webb’s place in Vermont, Shelburne Farms, and gave instructions to Mr. and Mrs. Webb and Creighton Webb in golf over Mr. Webb’s fine private course.
Willie Park assisted in laying out this course.
It has nine holes and, as in some places it borders on Lake Champlain, it is both picturesque and sporty. (Sun [New York], 11 August 1895, p. 14)
At this point, Fitzpatrick seems to have been unaware that it was Davis who laid out the nine-hole course that Blair visited. Fitzpatrick presumably conflated the fact that Willie Park had drawn up plans for nine new holes at Shelburne Farms with the fact that nine holes were in play there when Blair visited.
I presume that Blair was involved in planning the second nine holes that Park had been called to Shelburne Farms to design in June.
We recall that a week after Park sailed for Scotland, Blair was appointed to look after Park’s new layout at Knollwood: “The Knollwood Country Club at Elmsford, Westchester County, has just engaged the services of Peter S. Blair, who was Willie Park’s business assistant while in this country, as professional instructor over the club’s golf links (Sun [New York], 28 July 1895, p. 6). And we know that Blair would also show up at Watch Hill in December of 1895: “The Watch Hill Golf Club, which has one of the best seaside links on Rhode Island, has engaged Peter Blair to enlarge and improve the course. A number or artificial bunkers will be constructed” (Sun [New York], 16 December 1895, p. 8).
As we shall see, Blair did not lay out Park’s new holes, for this work was left for Willie Davis in October. It may be that Blair went to Shelburne Farms to enlarge and improve the Davis course in ways recommended by Park – perhaps by adding artificial bunkers to certain holes.
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I wonder whether Park talked to Davis at Newport about his plans for Shelburne Farms and whether he subsequently recommend to the Webbs that Davis do the work?
On the one had, the course existing Davis course had been heavily used during the 1895 season, as noted by a reporter who described the recreational facilities at Shelburne Farms in the summer of 1895: “Then there is one of the finest golf links in the country, which has been very much in requisition this summer for those who are inclined toward this sport” (St. Alban’s Daily Register [St. Albans, Vermont], 3 September 1895, p. 2). And we recall that Davis apparently told Fitzpatrick that one of the reasons he was returning to Shelburne Farms in the fall of 1895 was to “repair any defects which may have developed since the spring” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5).
It is interesting to note that in the book that he would publish the following spring, The Game of Golf, Park himself advised precisely this end-of-season practice for all golf courses: “the whole links should receive a through overhaul yearly at the end of each season” (The Game of Golf, p. 207). We may hear in Davis’s statement to Fitzpatrick one of the things that Park had suggested Davis do when he visited Shelburne Farms in October: overhaul the course. Indeed, Park may well have suggested to Davis that the end of the golf season – not the summer – was the time for him to visit Shelburne Farms.
On the other hand, when Davis went to Shelburne Farms in October of 1895, he seems to have anticipated having to review Park’s plans with the Webbs:
Some improvements are being made by W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, on Dr. W. Seward Webb’s links at Shelburne Farms, Vt.
This course, which is a nine-hole course, was originally laid out by Davis and is considered one of the finest in the country.
It will probably be extended to eighteen holes.
(New York Herald, 18 October 1895)
That word “probably” is interesting: the nine-hole course “will probably be extended to eighteen holes.” Was there a chance that Shelburne Farms Golf Links would not be extended at all and would instead remain nine holes?
The New York Sun item mentioned above, which seems to paraphrase information provided by Davis, also used the word “probably,” but in a slightly different way: “Davis will extend the course, probably, to 18 holes” (Sun [New York], 15 October 1895, p. 5, emphasis added). This locution and syntax are ambiguous. This sentence could mean the same thing as the sentence above in the New York Herald, or it could mean something slightly different – that the course was definitely going to be extended, but how many holes would be added is in question: probably nine, but perhaps fewer.
Was Davis’s input required before such a decision could be made? Or was he waiting on the Webbs to decide whether they really wanted a full 18-hole layout?
Over the course of two weeks in October of 1895, many newspapers carried news of Davis’s work at Shelburne Farms.
The New York Tribune wrote: “Superintendent W.F. Davis, of the Newport Golf Club, has been spending the week at Shelburne Farms, Vt., laying out private golf links for Dr. W. Seward Webb” (New York Tribune, 20 October 1895, p. 19). The New York Herald observed:
Some improvements are being made by W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, to Dr. W. Seard Webb’s links at Shelburne Farms, Vt.
The course, which is a nine-hole one, was originally laid out by Davis and is considered one of the finest in this country.
It will probably be extended to eighteen holes.
(New York Herald, 18 October 1895)
The Burlington Clipper noted:
Shelburne Snap Shots
Mr. W.F. Davis, superintendent of the Newport Golf Club, is laying out private golf links for Dr. W.S. Webb at Shelburne Farms.
They will be over two miles in length.
(Burlington Clipper [Vermont], 24 October 1895, p. 5)
In the end, nine new golf holes were indeed built, and the Shelburne Farms Links thereby became one of the earliest 18-hole golf courses in the United States.
The original nine-hole layout was said to have been “one and a half miles round (New York Times, 1 July 1895, p. 3). The new layout was “over two miles in length” (Burlington Clipper [Vermont], 24 October 1895, p. 5). Does this mean that the 18-hole layout was around 3,600 yards long? Note that when the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club hosted the 1896 U.S. Open, its course played at 4,423 yards – that is, about two and a half miles in length.
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The Webbs showed off the new course as soon as Davis finished it, with the Vermont Standard observing at the end of October: “Dr. Webb of Shelburne has laid out a course of golf links about two miles long and golf is just the thing now with his guests” (Vermont Standard, 31 October 1895, p. 2).
It immediately acquired an excellent reputation. The New York Sun said that the Webbs’ course at Shelburne Farms was (like the courses of “John Jacop Astor, at Rhinecliff” and “George Vanderbilt, at Biltmore”) “perfectly planned” (Sun [New York], 8 March 1896, p. 21). The Weekly Free Press of Burlington, Vermont, declared in 1899: “There are no finer links in the country than those of Shelburne farms” (Weekly Free Press [Burlington, Vermont], 21 September 1899, p. 4). In 1899, the Washington Times declared the 18-hole layout at Shelburne farms “one of the finest courses in the world” (Washington Times [Washington, District of Columbia], 10 October 1899, p. 2). In 1900, another Vermont newspaper echoed these judgements:
It is said that the best private golf links in the United States, or at least in the East, is that of Dr. W. Seward Webb at Shelburne Farms.
It was laid out in 1895 [actually, 1894] by W.F. Davis and afterwards enlarged to eighteen holes by Willie Park, Jr., during his first visit to this country.
(St. Alban’s Daily Messenger [St. Albans, Vermont], 3 September 1900, p. 7)
It seems likely that Davis built cop bunkers for the new nine holes at Shelburne Farms, for a visitor to the Webb estate in the fall of 1898 observed that the array of artificial hazards on the Davis-Park course was very noticeable: “Extensive golf links were made visible by their gay markers and their close-cut artificial hillocks” (St. Johnsbury Caledonian [St. Johnsbury, Vermont], 12 October 1898, p. 7). The “gay markers” were presumably the flagpoles, and the “artificial hillocks” were probably cop-bunkers – their artificial construction being obvious (in a way that artificial hillocks made to look natural would not have been).
Davis, Park, and the Webbs themselves may even have discussed in person the question of work on the links in the fall when all of them were in Newport in mid-July. Dr. and Mrs. Webb arrived in Newport on July 15th. They stayed in Newport until, at the end of the next day, they sailed with Eliza Webb’s brother, W.K. Vanderbilt, on his yacht Valiant to their regular vacation residence in Bar Harbor, Maine. A newspaper reported that they left “late last night” (that is, July 16th), which means that they had plenty of time to watch the 18-hole match played on July 16th between their two golf course designers (Boston Globe, 17 July 1895, p. 2). Indeed, recalling that the 36-hole money match had originally been planned for July 16th, it may well be that the Webbs had scheduled their two-day visit to Newport precisely to watch the big match.
In mid-July 1895, Park obviously discussed with Davis a number of matters related to golf course design and maintenance.
He reviewed with him the relatively simple technique of improving the “clayey” parts of a golf course with top dressings of sand. This matter was a bee in Park’s bonnet. When he laid out a private course for the Astors in May, he left instructions regarding how to deal with the soil: “the entire course is to be sprinkled with sand to thicken the grass” (Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5).
And he seems also to have talked to Davis about his exceptionally good putting greens at Shelburne Farms. Park may well have asked him how he had achieved such results. After all, as golf course designers, they were both dealing with the same soil in the American Northeast. Indeed, it would be surprising if they had not discussed all sorts of matters relating to golf course maintenance in America.
American Inspirations for The Game of Golf
From the moment he arrived in the United States, Park had been asked to teach the golf swing, to evaluate courses, to improve old ones, to design new ones, to suggest best practices in maintenance, and so on. It should be no surprise, then, to find that Park’s 1895 visit to the United States was important in leading him finally to accede to “friendly” suggestions (made “frequently”) that he write about such things and thereby become the first golf professional to contribute “to the literature of the game” (The Game of Golf, p. v).
When Park returned from New York to Edinburgh, at the end of July 1895, a reporter from the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch interviewed him. In sharing his tales of golf in America, Park used a phrase that would appear nine months later in The Game of Golf, allowing us to see, in retrospect, that he was thinking even then about topics he would explore in the book. The phrase in question appeared not just on the first page of the book; it was part of the first sentence.
In his Preface, Park explained why he decided to write the book:
Although professional golfers have always been teachers of the game, their instruction has been imparted more by example than by precept.
Such a method was and is undoubtedly the best, but it is not available to the same extent at the present day as it was, say, fifty or even twenty years ago, and hence a demand has sprung up for books of instruction.
(Game of Golf, p. v, emphasis added).
Park knew that the demand for books of instruction was potentially as big in America as it already actually was in Britain, but it was his experience in America that gave him the confidence that instruction by precept would sell particularly well in the New World:
The Americans are quick to learn the game …. [but] the method of teaching the game is different.
In the old country, the professional plays along with the pupil, ball against ball.
In America, the teacher devotes the whole attention to his pupils, showing how to handle the implement, how to stand, how to judge the lie of the green. An occasional drive or putt is all that is required by way of exhibition.
In short, by the American tyro, precept rather than example is sought.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2, emphasis added)
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Five months in the United States had convinced Park both that there was another way to teach golf and that this other way of teaching was effective (although perhaps not quite as effective as the old way). But the new way was more efficient than the old way.
While in the United States, Park also learned first-hand that instructional photographs of his stance and grip would be well-received by golfers. Early in his visit, he was introduced to Frank Sheldon Arnette (1866-1910), a former Chicago newspaperman who had just become the editor of a new journal devoted to golf called Golfing (New York) – the journal that would in 1897 become Golf (edited by Josiah Newman), and Arnette asked Park for permission to use photographs of his stance and grip in the first issue of the new publication.
A.J. Robertson, editor of Golf (London) was impressed:
Figure 245 Golfing (New York), vol 1 no 5 (September 1895), cover.
We have received from the United States the first copy of a monthly journal entitled “Golfing,” which, like our own little journal, is to be devoted exclusively to the interests of the Royal and Ancient game in the United States.
The first number is exceedingly well got up and contains a great variety of interesting material ….
The frontispiece is in colour – red and pale green – showing the figure of a lady golfer, drawn after the manner of Aubrey Beardsley, in the act of striking a red teed ball.
Among the articles which have been contributed to this f irst number is one by H.M.O. Tallmadge, of the United States Golf Association, giving an account of the St. Andrew’s (Yonkers) Golf Club....
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The other articles treat of golf in Canada, and in some of the other States, while Willie Park f igures prominently among the illustrations, showing the stance and grip with which certain difficult strokes ought to be played.
(Golf [London] 14 June 1895, p. 270)
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Arnette was impressed by Park.
He later explained to Chicago reporters that Park was an exceptional representative of the golf professionals then coming to American golf clubs to teach the game:
“They are all Scotchmen,” said Mr. Arnette, “and, as far as I know, they have all risen from the ranks of the caddies. Although but few of these have had the advantages of an education, some of them have become the equals of the men with whom they are associated [i.e. the gentlemen members of the golf clubs].
Willie Park, one of the best known of the lot, has recently married a Scotch lady of wealth and position and purchased from his own resources a country place in Scotland at the expense of $15,000.”
(Inter Ocean [Chicago, Illinois], 5 December 1895, p. 4)
Park returned to Scotland not just to marry advantageously, but also with a plan to write a book of golf instruction and also to illustrate that book with photographs – primarily photographs of his own stance, grip, and swing (in fact, stances, grips, and swings for all occasions).
Figure 246 The Game of Golf, pp. 66 b, 74 a, 78a.
Park experience of American golf courses probably also impacted The Game of Golf.
As golf was moving inland in Britain in the early 1890s, it was also moving to America, and Park recognized during his 1895 visit that successful development of the game in the New World would require a sophisticated philosophy of inland golf course architecture, for since there was virtually no links land in North America that could serve the growing interest in the game, nearly all golf courses would be laid out inland. His own design work in the United states must have enhanced the awareness he expressed in The Game of Golf that as a golf course designer, he was participating in a revolution by enabling golf to move inland from links land:
Until a few years ago, a golf links at a distance from the seashore was a thing seldom seen ….
As the demand for golfing facilities increased, it was impossible that the old courses could accommodate the numberless enthusiasts who threw themselves heart and soul into the game, and, as a natural consequence, golf links have come to be laid out everywhere, very often on places which the past generation of golfers would have deemed it little short of madness to attempt to transform into links….
There are really few places where a course cannot be laid out.
I do not say that a first-class links can be made everywhere that golf can be played, but a course can always be laid out over which many enjoyable games can be got and on which a considerable amount of skill can be attained.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 193-94)
In The Game of Golf, Park undertook to address the question implied in his last sentence above: how to develop an inland golf course that, on the one hand, could give pleasure to all levels of golfer and, on the other hand, could provide a sufficient challenge to stimulate the acquisition of proper skills.
At Knollwood, we recall, Park omitted cross bunkers in front of some putting greens – an apparently deliberate disavowal of the Dunn family’s practice of placing a cross bunker in front of every green. Park presumably designed holes in this way to allow golfers to play either a lofted approach or a run-up approach. In other words, such holes were designed to be instructive regarding techniques and strategies of approach play and thereby to stimulate the proper acquisition of physical and mental skills.
But the Knollwood members were not happy about this aspect of the layout: as we know, by November of 1895, just five months after the course had opened for play, many members asked that the course be made more difficult, leading the Green Committee to announce that by the spring of 1896, “new difficulties [will have been] placed in the way of such [holes] as seem too easy to approach” (New York Tribune, 17 November 1895, p. 24, emphasis added). Implicitly, members wanted to disallow the run-up approach.
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A passage in The Game of Golf already quoted above seems to contain Park’s implicit reply to golfers such as those at Knollwood who were enamored of the Dunn family’s systematic cross bunkering:
There is a great cry nowadays that every hole should have a hazard in front requiring to be lofted over, but I think it is possible to carry a system of this kind too far.
It ties players down to pitching all their approaches instead of making them exercise their judgment as to whether the ball should be lofted or run up.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 204-05)
Park may have heard the “great cry nowadays” in Britain; he certainly heard it in the United States. Indeed, it may have been criticism of certain of his American holes for not being sufficiently penal that led him to explain his design ideas in The Game of Golf shortly after his returned to Scotland.
I suspect that Park convinced members at Knollwood that since virtually the entire original membership was new to golf, their golf course should not be set up to make the game unpleasantly difficult. The report in the New York Times about improvements made at Knollwood during the winter of 1896 reads as though club members had passed along as their rationale for changing the course advice that Park had given them in the spring of 1895: “The grounds have become worn down so as to offer better golfing facilities, and several desirable changes, which suggested themselves with the growth of golfing experience in the club, have been made” (New York Times, 22 March 1896, p. 25). When The Game of Golf was published a month after this report appeared, it made precisely these two points:
If all are beginners, it is a mistake to make the course too difficult at first, as it will diminish their pleasure and possibly disgust them with the green; but as they get more expert, the links can be made more difficult by lengthening the holes and similar devices.
On new greens which are of a rough nature, the holes should be made shorter to begin with until the ground is walked down, and they can afterwards be lengthened ….
(The Game of Golf, p. 201)
Again, we may be hearing echoes in The Game of Golf of Park’s experience in America.
I can see him sitting in his deck chair on the long voyage back to Scotland jotting down notes for chapters in the book he had already decided to write.
The Astor Risk
There is one known exception to Park’s penchant for laying out rigorously penal designs in America during his 1895 stay in America: the private golf course he laid out for the Astors at their Ferncliff Farm estate close to the hamlet of Rheincliff, near Reinbeck, New York.
Figure 247 Early 1900s postcard showing the country house at Ferncliff Farm, the estate of John Jacob Astor and Alva Lowle Willing (alias Mrs. Astor).
Park explained to Edinburgh reporters how this arrangement came about:
Willie said that while enjoying the hospitality of the St Andrews Club, he was telegraphed for by Mr. J.J. Astor, the millionaire, and, in response to the wire, he went to the Astors’ home at Rhinecliff.
Here, he stayed for a week, during which he enjoyed hospitality as an American millionaire knows how to offer it.
During the stay, he gave lessons in the game to Mr. and Mrs. Astor, playing over their private course.
(Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, 31 July 1895, p. 2)
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Park not only gave the Astors lessons in the art of the golf seeing; he also laid out for them a nine-hole golf course:
Figure 248 Ava Lowle Willing, alias Mrs. Astor (1868-1959); John Jacob Astor IV (1862-1912). The latter went down with the Titanic.
Park returned [to New York city] yesterday after passing a week at Rhinecliff, where he was employed in laying out the links and in giving lessons to Mr. and Mrs. Astor and their house party.
“Mr. Astor was too busy laying out a new road through the property and in superintending other improvements,” said Park, “to give much time to golf, but we were on the links Saturday.”
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“Mrs. Astor is very enthusiastic about the game. She played at Newport last summer for the first time and promises to make a good golfer. She swings in a most graceful style, and in golf, swing is everything.”
(Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5)
That Park worked for the Astors is well known, but it seems not to have been recognized that Park was not asked to lay out a golf course from scratch. He was asked to remodel an existing course: “A number of changes in the arrangement of the greens was suggested by Park, and the entire course is to be sprinkled with sand to thicken the grass” (Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5).
The original golf course was probably under construction by the fall of 1894, for it was widely reported in December that “Mrs. Astor …. is having golf links built at Rhinecliff” (The Plain Dealer, 16 December 1894, p. 31). It was well used early in the spring of 1895, Ava Astor for the f irst time adding golf to the list of the sports her guests were invited to play when they visited during the six weeks she spent at Ferncliff between the end of the London season and the beginning of the Newport season:
Invitations are to take part in shooting matches, judge sweepstakes, to try at the teeing grounds and to test the new rackets or judge the latest roadsters.
They read quite informally, stating the dates of coming and going … and also the nature of the house-party.
Figure 249 Signature of Ava W. Astor, Wheeling Sunday Register (West Virginia), 19 May 1895, p. 10.
“To shoot,” “to play tennis,” “to play golf,” are distinctly stated, and to them are signed the fascinating round hand of [here was reproduced the signature seen to the left]
​
(Wheeling Sunday Register [West Virginia], 19 May 1895, p. 10)
As we know, Ava Astor had learned the game at Newport in 1894 and was not just an “enthusiast,” but someone with a good swing. Playing in a Newport tournament in the summer of 1895, she was accorded a handicap of 4, but did not factor in the results: “Mrs. Astor proved herself one of the hardest drivers, but she was very inaccurate” (Chicago Chronicle, 11 August 1895, p. 17).
She became closely associated with the Newport course. This was so much the case that in a March 1895 newspaper item called “Girls Who Play Golf” (which was widely printed across the United States), the design of the layout was partly attributed to her:
The ideal ground for mixed parties – men and women – in the Newport [golf] field. It was planned largely by Mrs. John Jacob Astor and has all the admirable features that rule all the athletic sports with which that lady is associated.
There are no stone walls too high for the ladies to climb, no dreadful streams to be leaped by those who hold up skirts, and no awful hills that tire one before the last link [golf hole] is in sight.
(Akron Beacon Journal, 16 March 1895, p. 4).
Implicitly, the writer of this article attributes the woman-friendly aspects of the Newport layout to Ava Astor’s influence.
Astor knew what she wanted in a golf course. The next paragraph of this article seems to present her own sense of the deficiencies of the Astors’ original layout:
Upon her place at Rhinebeck, Mrs. Astor has another golf field [in addition to her own golf field at Newport!].
But here … the course is very difficult, and often there is climbing to be done over hedges, and there is one place where ponies are in readiness for a water jump, and at this spot there is also a tiny ferry boat to take the “caddies” across and those whose ambitions do not lean toward the jump across the water.
(Akron Beacon Journal [Ohio], 16 March 1895, p. 4)
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Apparently, these problems were due to the fact that the course was “planned especially for Mr. Astor and his friends” (Akron Beacon Journal [Ohio], 16 March 1895, p. 4).
Figure 250 Virginia Graham Fair (1875-1935, late 1890s. Portrait by Giovanni Boldini.
Planned for men!!!
The original course had to be “shortened” when played by most women, and there were “helps … usually allowed to those that are weak of wrist” (Akron Beacon Journal [Ohio], 16 March 1895, p. 4). It is not clear how these accommodations of weak-wristed folk were made, but only one woman took on the long course and also took on the men, and it was not Ava Astor. It was her friend, “Virginia Fair, the western heiress”:
For Miss Fair, the links are never shortened, and she takes her part in the twosomes or foursomes without being a handicap to skillful players….
One of Miss Fair’s “lofts” has been estimated at two hundred yards…. At the drive, she came upon the “putting ground” directly from the “tee” and holed her ball at the second shot, winning the hole, of course, and eventually the game. In consequence of this feat, the hole was named after her and is now “Fair Haven.” The other holes upon the ground received names, too, most of them geographical, but Miss Fair’s was the only one for feats of strength and skill.
​
(Akron Beacon Journal [Ohio], 16 March 1895, p. 4)
We recognize two penal aspects of the design. First, there were fairway-wide hedges. There was no way around them; one had to go over. And, since this had to be done “often,” there must have been quite a few golf holes with hedges placed as cross bunkers. Second, there was a water jump, which would have been a creek or pond.
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Ava Astor did not necessarily object to the penal aspects of the original design. After all, the stone walls, ditches, and hills at Newport were acceptable to her because they were walkable. And so, Park is unlikely to have been asked to abjure the principles of penal design altogether.
And he certainly did not forego the forced carries preferred by penal design, as we can see from his own written description of the course:
From the starting tee, in front of the house, to the first hole is 250 yards. The hazards are large trees on the right and left, and a ditch. The hole is on a little plateau.
To the second hole from the tee is 245 yards. There are trees on the left side and the wide park road makes a nice hazard.
The third hole is at the foot of a hillock, 256 yards from the tee, reached through scattered trees, which require straight drives.
From the fourth tee to hole is 230 yards. The course is past a clump of trees on the right and the hole is in a basin-like hollow behind a small hill, which calls for lofting play.
A drive over a ditch and between two clumps of trees is the approach to the fifth hole: distance 300 yards and [the hole is] on the slope of a hill.
Figure 251 The nature of the hills on the Astor property is suggested by this early 1900s photograph. The building at the top of the hill (which housed tennis courts) was commissioned in 1902. In 1895, it was reported that “The course, which has nine holes, is situated in the beautiful park which surrounds the mansion” (Poughkeepsie Eagle News (New York, 11 June 1895, p. 3).
Play for the sixth hole is on top of the hill, which commands a grand view of the Hudson [River]. It is 230 yards from tee to hole, which might be made 440 yards if wanted. It is all uphill work, with trees on the right and a swamp on the left. The sixth is the far hole.
The seventh is the same distance, 230 yards, with the same hazards, but the play is downhill, and a good player might make the putting green in one stroke.
To end the round, the players make a long drive of 310 yards to the eighth hole, which is on a hillock, guarded by a group of trees. It is a very sporty hole.
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The ninth hole is near the house and 200 yards away. The play is through a hollow, along a hillside, finishing on a very pretty putting green on the lawn.
The entire measurement of the links, computing the distance from the tees to the holes, is 2,251 yards.
(Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5)
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We recognize fairway-wide cross bunkers typical of penal design: a ditch on the 1st hole, “a small hill” to be lofted to reach the 4th green; the drive on the 5th hole facing “a ditch,” and “play … through a hollow, along a hillside” on the way to the 9th green 200 yards away (Park assumed that a good drive would go up to 175 yards in 1895).
Four of the nine holes seem to accord with the precepts of penal design.
It is not clear from Park’s account of the 2nd hole, however, whether “the wide park road” crossed the fairway or ran alongside it: “There are trees on the left side and the wide park road makes a nice hazard.” He may have intended the syntax of his sentence to have been understood as implying a parallel construction: “There are trees on the left side and the wide park road makes a nice hazard on the right side.”
If so, Park’s 2nd hole is an instance of foregoing cross bunkers for side hazards requiring golfers “to keep to the proper course.” Yet whether or not the 2nd hole was designed in this way, certainly the 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 8th holes were. On these holes, there is nary a cross bunker in sight, but there are dangers left and/or right: one reaches the third green “through scattered trees, which require straight drives”; the 6th hole “is all uphill work, with trees on the right and a swamp on the left”; the 7th has “the same hazards, but the play is downhill”; the “long,” “sporty” 8th hole places nothing in the way of the golfer but makes approach to the green interesting by placing it “on a hillock” where it is “guarded by a group of trees.”
And so, Park’s work for the Astors may have been a stimulus for ideas that he would advance in The Game of Golf. At least four of the holes are suggestive of the “keep to the proper course” strategy that he would soon articulate in The Game of Golf.
And H.L. Fitzpatrick’s invitation to Park to write up a description of the course may have helped to convince him to write a book about golf:
A demand has sprung up for books of instruction. Amateur golfers have hitherto been the sole contributors to the literature of the game, but the belief has frequently been expressed to me that a volume coming from a professional would be read with interest, and it has long been suggested that I should write one.
(The Game of Golf, p v)
Park perhaps hesitated for a “long” time to join the list of gentlemen writers about golf because he had received no formal education beyond the age of fourteen or fifteen. If he lacked confidence in his writing ability, he perhaps discovered in writing this course description that he had a gift for clear and succinct writing about golf. Park said in his Preface to The Game of Golf that he finally decided to make the attempt because he had been “encouraged by … friendly remarks”; I expect that Fitzpatrick made friendly remarks about his piece for the Sun.
In the Sun’s article about Park’s work for the Astor’s, there is even a hint that after giving “pointers on the ancient game” to the Astors and their guests, he was also thinking of giving pointers to course builders. As Fitzpatrick explains:
The links begin and end on the lawn before the house, and the scotch expert pronounces them one of the best private courses he has seen.
The distance between the holes and salient points of the greens are given in the following summary.
To some extent, it may be a guide to owners of country places who wish to play golf.
(Sun [New York], 23 May 1895, p. 5)
And, finally, Park may have found a unique incitement to rethink the Astor’s penal layout. In addition to Ava Astor’s apparent requirement that the course be made more walkable, there were the lessons Park gave her and the rounds of golf they played together. He would have seen that she was “one of the hardest drivers, but … very inaccurate”: she would benefit from a layout that required her “to keep to the proper course”!
Willie Park Engaged by St Andrews in 1896
Three months after the publication of The Game of Golf, Willie Park applied his revolutionary architectural ideas in New York.
In November of 1895, the St Andrews Golf Club had acquired a property called Mount Hope that it intended to develop as an 18-hole championship golf course. Two months later, in January of 1896, the Club indicated that designing the layout would be an in-house matter: “The new links of the St. Andrew’s Club at Mount Hope will be laid out by a committee of the members. It is believed that there is talent enough among the players to attain good results without the aid of a professional as adviser” (Sun [New York], 27 January 1896, p. 8). By the spring, sanity was restored at the Club, and it was arranged for Willie Park to advise the Club about the layout on its new property.
Figure 252 Sketch of Willie Park in anticipation of 1896 US Open. The World (New York), 12 July 1896, p. 11.
Park originally planned to arrive in New York in time to play in the US Open at Shinnecock Hills on July 18th. A newspaper reported on Wednesday, July 8th: “Willie Park, Jr, … is expected to arrive this week” (Time Union [Brooklyn, New York], 8 July 1896, p. 8). But he did not arrive until the very day of the championship – alas, just hours after the conclusion of the contest, which was won by James Foulis.
Word had reached the USGA that Park was not likely to arrive in time for him to play in the tournament, but a place was nonetheless held for him until the day of the competition (he was scheduled to play alongside Sam Tucker).
It turns out that “business prevented him from sailing on July 1, as first intended” (Boston Globe, 21 July 1896, p. 2).
Park had been attending to the opening of branches of his company in London and Manchester at the end of June and beginning of July (respectively), and he would be attending to his business in New York as soon as he arrived in the United States in mid-July, as Fitzpatrick, of the New York Sun, reported: “Park is … in this country on business” (Sun [New York], 21 July 1896, p. 4).
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The first reports of Park’s arrival and plans appeared in newspapers on Tuesday, July 21st. In addition to checking on the branch of William Park & Sons operating in New York, he hoped to play some challenge matches against prominent golf professionals: “He may play a match or two and is ‘willin’ … should any first-class professional choose to meet him” (Sun [New York], 21 July 1896, p. 4). And there were also plans to design golf courses: “he will lay out a number of links before returning [to Scotland]” (Sun [New York], 21 July 1896, p. 4).
Park seems to have provided the information above, as well as a detailed account of his celebrated matches in Scotland since leaving the United States the year before, to Fitzpatrick of the New York Sun. Park’s ship, the S.S. Umbria, had “arriv[ed] in New York late Saturday night” (Buffalo Post [New York], 20 July 1896, p. 10). He would have disembarked on Sunday and then probably gone to his shop. On Monday, I expect, either Park visited Fitzpatrick’s newspaper office or, as in 1895, Fitzpatrick came to Park’s store.
I think that it is unlikely that the St. Andrews Golf Club waited to hire Park until after he arrived in the United States – that is, on the Sunday (not a business day!) or Monday after he arrived, for on Tuesday Fitzpatrick informed his readers about his contract with St. Andrews: “One engagement is to look over the new course to be laid out at Mt Hope by the St. Andrew’s Golf Club” (Sun [New York], 21 July 1896, p. 4). It is likely that Park had been contacted by the Club while he was still in Britain and so arrived with this St. Andrews commission in hand.
Park had certainly planned ahead for his summer visit to the United States. For instance, he had arranged ahead of time to represent the Morris County Golf Club in the US Open: “Should Park have arrived in time for the open championship, he would have entered, by an agreement with Willie Weir, the greenskeeper, as the representative of the Morris County Golf Club” (Sun [New York], 25 July 1896, p. 5). Park’s arrangement with Morris County and his arrangement with St. Andrews were no doubt settled well before he sailed.
After talking with Fitzpatrick, Park seems to have gone to the St. Andrew’s Golf Club to see Lockhart. Reporting on Park’s time in the country between his arrival on Sunday and Wednesday, the New York Sun observes: “Since his arrival in this country, Willie Park, Jr, has handled the clubs but in half a round at St. Andrew’s when his partner was Robert Lockhart and no cards were kept” (Sun [New York], 23 July 1896, p. 5).
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I suspect that Park had little time for playing golf at St. Andrew’s because he was looking over the Mount Hope property and plotting an 18-hole layout. Since he was scheduled to play at the Morris County Golf Club on the Saturday, I expect that he laid out the St. Andrews course between Wednesday and Friday.
Immediately after the Club’s purchase of its new property, golf writers for the New York Times and the New York Sun described the site and anticipated what kind of golf course would be laid out. Their reports seem to convey what they had been told by members – probably the ones that gave the Club confidence that there was “talent enough among the players to attain good results without the aid of a professional as adviser.”
The writer for the New York Times emphasizes how many natural obstacles were already present on the course to serve as the kind of hazards necessary for proper penal design:
The first tee will probably be on the side of the hill east of the clubhouse. The hill makes a very steep descent here, ending abruptly in a long stretch of beautiful level meadow about half a mile long and a fourth of a mile wide.
Two small ponds are in the field and a brook runs through it, which can be admirably adapted for golfing purposes.
This broad field, big enough for a mile trotting track, runs down to the main road, being interspersed here and there with stone walls, rail fences, and patches of brush wood.
After playing over this delightful golfing ground, the player will then turn to the west and begin his homeward journey, climbing gradually up good-sized hills which every now and then descend into miniature valleys in two or three of which are ravines and brooks which will cause no end of trouble to the unwary player.
The long range of hilly land bounding the ground to the west is plentifully supplied with natural hazards in the way of immense projecting rocks, stunted cedar trees, stone walls, old rail fences, and patches of woods.
Going up these hills will remind the golfers very much of the high and hilly holes on their present ground at St. Andrews about three miles below. The nature of the ground is very much the same, only in some places a little rougher.
One of the greens will probably be placed in a beautiful orchard containing 100 splendid trees. This orchard is just below the clubhouse site, and there is a large cornfield nearby, too.
The entire farm is a first-class natural golf course, there being everything required to bring out all styles of play.
It will need good judgement to keep clear of the brooks, stone walls, ravines, and outstanding rocks, and it is for these reasons that genuine golfers are so much in love with the farm, so peculiarly fitted for the enjoyment of their favorite sport.
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(New York Times, 24 November 1895, p. 21)
Observing many of the same features of the property, Fitzpatrick, in the Sun, nonetheless says that he can see a need for the site’s natural hazards to be supplemented with artificial ones:
The ground has many natural advantages for a links.
The hills are higher than on the present course and more numerous; nearly all the fields have been used as pastures and are covered with short, thick grass; there are open ditches, stone walls, some large and well located trees and rail fences, and it is apparent that in the hands of a skilful builder of links, learned in the placing of artificial bunkers and hazards, it will not be a difficult task to fulfil the sanguine anticipations of the club.
(Sun [New York], 24 November 1895, p. 20)
To Fitzpatrick, it is obvious that if the course is to be laid out in accord with the tenets of penal design, there will have to be “artificial bunkers and hazards.” And no random location of such artificial bunkers and hazards will do; they will have to be located by “a skilful builder of links” who is “learned in the placing” of them. That is, they will have to be placed scientifically.
It was the St. Andrews Golf Club’s resident golf professional, Samuel Tucker (nephew of Willie Dunn, Jr) who constructed the new 18-hole course in the fall and winter of 1896-97 with a crew of 30 men, but I suggest that this layout was constructed according to plans drawn up by Park in July of 1896.
As we shall see, the design unexpectedly included few artificial hazards, and it used the so called “natural” stone-wall hazards in a desultory way only. Indeed, some stone walls were dismantled. Despite the similarity of the respective landscapes, this new St Andrews course was completely different from the 9-hole course that Park fell in love with when he stayed at the Club at the beginning of his 1895 visit.
Park's 1896 St Andrews Design
Park arrived in New York with ideas promoted in his new book top of mind.
When he spoke to Fitzpatrick at the start of his visit, he shared with him a photograph (reproduced in the New York Sun as the sketch seen below) that showed him on the Musselburgh 3rd green with J.H. Taylor in their June 16th challenge match.
Figure 253 Sun [New York], 26 July 1896, p. 6.
In his conversation with Fitzpatrick about what the photograph shows, Park pointed out how different the Musselburgh green was from American greens:
[Fitzpatrick paraphrases Park:] The putting green is not a sodded square, as in this country, but merely a nice, rolling stretch of turf, clipped as short as possible by the mowing machines.
There may be a lesson in this to the designers of links in America.
(Sun [New York], 26 July 1896, p. 6)
This passage essentially reprises the advice Park published in The Game of Golf just months before:
If natural putting greens cannot be made on the course as it stands, then they must be dug up and laid with suitable turf; but this should only be done as a last resort.
It is a bad piece of ground that will not improve sufficiently to make a fairly good putting green under proper care and with due cutting and rolling and top-dressing.
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A strong attempt should always be made to bring the natural turf into condition before resorting to the lifting and turfing of a putting green.
(The Game of Golf, p. 202)
I suspect that Park repeated to Fitzpatrick everything written above – and perhaps said a good deal more on the topic – but that out of consideration for ordinary readers, the newspaperman greatly condensed the designer’s detailed observations.
Description of work on the first nine holes in December of 1896 shows that Park’s ideas about putting greens were deployed on the new course:
The first hole on the new St. Andrews links at Mount Hope is a downhill drive of 264 yards over the best of turf. The putting green is on a level turf square at the bottom of the slope.
The remaining holes now finished, up to the ninth, lie in a valley which is crossed by the Sylvain Spring Brook, one of the feeders of the Yonkers Reservoir…. The banks are high and well grassed, forming a splendid water hazard.
Two circular bunkers, formerly small lakes, are in the center of the valley.
The stone walls of the old farm have been turned into dirt bunkers and one or two shallow and broad sand bunkers marked out.
The putting greens, in some cases double ones and all very large, preserve the roll of the ground. The [putting green] turf is unusually thick and smooth and is to be reinforced by seedings from a mixture obtained at St. Andrews, Scotland, and used [there] on the putting greens on the noted old links.
(Amateur Athlete, vol 2 no 13 [December 1896], p. 15)
Consistent with Park’s advice, there was no sodding of greens. As recommended in The Game of Golf, the greens preserved “the roll of the ground”: “while the ground should be comparatively level, it is not desirable that it should be perfectly flat like a billiard table but should rather be of a slightly undulating character” (The Game of Golf, p. 202). And again as recommended in The Game of Golf, putting greens were “all very large”: “The putting greens should be as large as possible”; “I … advocate the making of large greens to enable the hole to be moved about from time to time as occasion requires” (The Game of Golf, pp. 202. 206-07).
Note that on the second nine holes, the putting greens seem to have been more “artificial”:
Quite a number of the greens have been artificially levelled and terraced up.
The old Scottish-bred player may be inclined to criticize this concession to New World ideas, but in nearly every case this method of construction was made imperative on account of the lay of the land.
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(W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen, Harper’s Weekly, vol 41 no 2131 [23 October 1897], p. 1066)
A map published in the spring of 1897 shows most of the property’s natural hazards that had been celebrated in the New York Times in November of 1895, but it shows none of the “artificial bunkers and hazards” that the New York Sun’s Fitzpatrick had at that time predicted would have to be added by “a skilful builder of links” who was “learned in the placing” of them.
Figure 254 Sun (New York), 2 May 1897, p. 23.
In the fall of 1897, William G. Van Tassel Sutphen (soon to become the editor of Golf [New York]), reviewed the new course for Harper’s Weekly. He noted the skilful use of many of the natural hazards, but he also identified a number of holes that he regarded as so uninteresting as to be unworthy of comment:
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The first four holes are on the upper table land.
Figure 255 Described as a photograph of the 1st hole and 4th green. Harper's Weekly, vol 4 no 2131 (23 October 1897), p. 1065.
The lies are excellent and the principal hazards are granite outcrops and a stone dike in front of the third tee.
Figure 256 View from the 5th tee. Harper's Weekly, vol 4 no 2131 (23 October 1897), p. 1065.
The drive from the fifth tee takes us to the lower meadow, a beautiful stretch of almost perfectly level turf and intersected by the Sprain Brook. The tee is on the very brink of the precipice and so sheer is the descent that it looks as though one could toss a biscuit upon the green 280 yards away. For all that, one must make a good long drive to secure a good lie upon the fine turf in front of the green and there are rare possibilities of disaster for the topped or badly pulled ball.
There are nine holes upon the flat, the principal hazard being the Sprain Brook and an old stone wall that protects the sixth hole and calls for a long carry from the seventh tee. The “Island” or short hole of 140 yards has its green skilfully guarded by the double hazard of the brook and the open canal and is an excellent hole in three.
Figure 257 In the foreground: golfers on the 7th green. 8th tee on the rise behind the green (centre of left margin of the photograph). Harper's Weekly, vol 4 no 2131 (23 October 1897), p. 1065.
The ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth holes are of only moderate interest, and the committee must have considered that the unlucky reputation attached to the number thirteen was enough in itself to confound the duffer, since the hole is only 190 yards long and without hazard of any kind excepting the side fence for a badly pulled drive.
Coming now to the homestretch, we have three blind holes in succession and the sixteenth is perhaps the spectacular hole of the entire course. It is 235 yards in length, but a really first-class drive will carry the summit of the grassy hill and from there the descent is so steep that the ball has an excellent chance of making the green on the run….
The last part of the course has been very skilfully planned so as to bring the player back to the upland and the clubhouse with the minimum amount of hill-climbing. The course is narrower and the driving must be straight and long.
The final drive is over a deep hollow and apple orchard and a top may even here hopelessly ruin a good card.
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(W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen, Harper’s Weekly, vol 41 no 2131 [23 October 1897], p. 1066)
Sutphen recognized great potential in the layout, but we can see from his criticism of a number of holes that he was puzzled by the relative paucity of artificial hazards. Regarding the course as deficient according to the tenets of penal design theory, Sutphen was confident that the Club would have to add cross bunkers – especially in front of putting greens:
Figure 258 Early photograph of play at St. Andrews. Undated.
In its general features, the course is distinguished for the rich reward that it bestows upon the man whose drives from the tees are both far and sure.
A topped or foozled drive, in almost every instance, is severely punished, but the player who can get his ball squarely away, with a carry of say one hundred and sixty yards, is pretty sure to find himself with a good lie on a comparatively smooth road [that is, a route without obstacles] to the desired haven of the green.
Traps and “pot” and “cop” bunkers are conspicuous by their absence, but the Green Committee will probably be obliged to put in some additional artificial hazards to punish a foozled second shot and to encourage the player whose strong point is in pitching onto the green with the iron.
As it stands, the course is sound golf, but hardly difficult enough for first-class all-round play ….
There are grand possibilities for the best golf at St. Andrews, and they will undoubtedly be utilized as time goes by.
(W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen, Harper’s Weekly, vol 41 no 2131 [23 October 1897], p. 1066)
We know, of course, that in The Game of Golf, Park had argued against the very ideas that Sutphen assumed were unquestionable:
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There is a great cry nowadays that every hole should have a hazard in front requiring to be lofted over, but I think it is possible to carry a system of this kind too far.
It ties players down to pitching all their approaches instead of making them exercise their judgement as to whether the ball should be lofted or run up.
No golfer will deny that there should be hazards in front of some holes, but I think that at others there should be a clear road, with hazards judiciously placed on either side to punish wild shots.
To loft a ball with an iron is comparatively easy to any player except an absolute novice, but it is not easy to keep to the proper course.
(The Game of Golf, pp. 204-205)
The 1896 St. Andrews layout seems to have been a textbook example of the kind of variation in layout strategies that Park recommended in his 1896 textbook!
Stone fences were still used as hazards on three holes (there were fences to be carried with the drive on two holes and a fence to be lofted over on the approach to one green), and creeks served as cross bunkers for first or second shots on some holes (a nexus of two creeks allowing for the design of what was virtually an island green for a 140-yd hole), but generally creeks, swamps, hollows, and trees were to be found along the sides of fairways to discipline lines of play and to make golfers “keep to the proper course.”
The Davis Course for George Vanderbilt
After meeting Willie Park in mid-July of 1895, Davis next designed a course from December of 1895 to January of 1896 and he did so for another of the Vanderbilts.
Figure 259 George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914).
Well-known to various Vanderbilts – Cornelius and William K. Vanderbilt at Newport, and their sister Mrs. Seward Webb – Davis was asked by the youngest of the Vanderbilt siblings, George W. Vanderbilt, to lay out a nine-hole course at the latter’s Biltmore Estate, a few miles south of Asheville, North Carolina, late in 1895.
Davis’s North Carolina layout was by no means a textbook example of Game of Golf design. Regarding drives, in fact, the course followed the tenets of penal design theory. But, as would soon be recommended by Park, Davis omitted cross bunkers before several greens – allowing either a pitch-shot approach or a run-up approach.
Perhaps Davis and Park had not, in fact, talked about new ideas for inland golf course design in mid-July.
Or perhaps they had indeed talked about some of Park’s new ideas but Davis was not yet convinced that any such new ideas they discussed were viable.
Or perhaps Davis actually proposed a new style of layout to George Vanderbilt but the latter wanted nothing to do with new ideas and asked for a course just like the ones his siblings enjoyed at Newport, Morris County, and Shelburne Farms.
Many years in the making, Vanderbilt’s magnificent mansion on his 9,000 acre estate was ready for occupation in 1895.
The French Renaissance revival house was designed by Richard Morris Hunt. The grounds were landscaped by New York City’s Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmstead.
Chosen to be the Biltmore Estate’s golf course architect, Davis joined two of America’s greatest architects in work on what became America’s largest private house!
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Vanderbilt was determined from the beginning to make a golf course part of the estate. In May of 1895, the following item appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
Golf Grounds
Geo. W. Vanderbilt will have on his estate near Biltmore grounds for golf, the game which is taking such a firm hold in American sports.
The grounds will be to the northwest of the palace and will extend back two miles and are to be laid off by Thomas Fisher.
(Asheville Citizen-Times [North Carolina], 20 May 1895, p. 4)
I can find no information about the putative golf course designer named “Thomas Fisher.” And I can find no evidence that anything came of this initial plan for a 3,520-yard (i.e., “two mile”) course “northwest of the palace.”
Figure 260 Willie Davis, winner of a professional tournament held at the Lenox Golf Club, Massachusetts, September 1895. Photograph supplied by his great granddaughter Susan A. Martensen.
Note that Davis’s 1895-96 3,130-yard nine-hole Biltmore Estate layout was in no way a redesign of a course laid out earlier in 1895 northwest of Biltmore House.
Instead, Davis’s course would be located on the opposite side of the property: it was laid out to the south and west of the “palace” along the flood plain on the east side of the French Broad River.
This location would literally prove to be the undoing of the golf course, insofar as it was frequently inundated by flooding – a fact that would lead to the eventual abandonment of the course.
Below, on the 1896 Olmstead map of the Biltmore Estate I have marked with a yellow outline the location of Davis’s course alongside the French Broad River.
Figure 261 Annotated 1896 map of “Biltmore Estate” prepared by Olmstead, Olmstead & Eliot of Brookline, Massachusetts. The golf course site on the flood plain of the French Broad River is outlined in yellow.
The photograph below was taken from the site of the future mansion, looking west to where the golf course would be laid out on the flat, level fields alongside the French Broad River.
Figure 262 Undated photograph from the site of the future mansion on the Biltmore Estate. Circa 1889.
The photograph below shows a view from the opposite direction.
Figure 263 View of the Biltmore Estate mansion looking from east to west across the French Broad River, circa 1895. The northern end of the golf course was marked by the island in the “Lagoon,” where Davis located on the island seen above both his 6th green and his 7th tee. This was probably the first island green on a golf course in North America.
We learn from Golf (London) editor Robertson that Davis went to the Biltmore Estate early in December of 1895:
The Americans are still pushing ahead with golf.
W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Golf Club, Rhode Island, laid out a course early last month [December 1895] on the estate of Mr. G.W. Vanderbilt, at Biltmore, North Carolina, where the host had a large party assembled for the Christmas holidays.
The gathering partook somewhat of the nature of a housewarming to celebrate the opening of the mansion. The building of the house and the laying out of the grounds have cost over five millions of dollars, or upwards of £1,000,000.
It is pleasing to lovers of the Royal and Ancient Game to think that the American millionaire does not consider his princely domain complete without a golf course.
May he have many a happy match over it!
A better selection than that of Davis for planning out the course could not have been made.
He is probably the best professional player in America at the present time, and we are glad to hear that he has done his portion of the work on Mr. Vanderbilt’s estate skilfully and well.
(Golf [London], vol 11 no 286 [3 January 1896], p. 359)
Robertson presumably received this news via a letter from Davis himself, who continued to write Robertson after their first correspondence in 1893.
The New York Times also celebrated Davis’s work at the Biltmore Estate:
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Not far from Asheville is the magnificent home of George Vanderbilt, who, evidently not considering his abode perfect without a golf course, has had a fine nine-hole course laid out, which was first played over Christmas Day.
Willie F. Davis, the celebrated professional in charge of the New[port] Golf Club grounds, spent several days at George Vanderbilt’s place superintending the laying out of the links, and that is sufficient proof in itself that Mr. Vanderbilt has a fine course.
(New York Times, 25 January 1896, p. 10)
To open his new house, Vanderbilt hosted the greatest family reunions in years:
The day after Christmas, George W. Vanderbilt opened his country home near Asheville, N.C.
All the immediate members of the Vanderbilt family now in this country are guests at “Biltmore House.”
Among them are Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, mother of the owner of Biltmore; Mrs. Bromley, his aunt …; Mr. and Mrs. F.W. Vanderbilt, Dr. and Mrs. W. Seward Webb …; Cornelius Vanderbilt and family; W.K. Vanderbilt … and others.
All went in private [railway] cars and took with them an army of servants.
It was a regular family reunion, and the first one for a long time.
(Philadelphia Enquirer [Pennsylvania], 29 December 1895, p. 20)
Eager to accommodate his relatives in the manner to which they had become accustomed, Vanderbilt personally supervised work on the final details of construction: “For two weeks past, G.W. Vanderbilt has personally directed a corps of carvers, joiners, decorators and florists in giving the finishing touches to the great mansion” (Selma Times [Selma, Alabama], 27 December 1895, p. 2).
Vanderbilt no doubt also talked directly to Davis about the laying out of the golf course.
All of George Vanderbilt’s siblings were dedicated golfers. The New York Journal observed that “Willie K. Vanderbilt,” with “a whole train to himself,” arrived at Biltmore “with his valet and golf appurtenances” (Journal [New York], 2 January 1896, p. 8). And several of the Vanderbilt siblings owned and/or played on courses laid out by Davis – the latter fact perhaps accounting for the decision by the youngest Vanderbilt to commission Davis to lay out the nine-hole Biltmore course.
Davis was no doubt told when he arrived at Biltmore early in December that his job was to make a golf course that would be playable by the time of the grand opening of the house over the Christmas holidays:
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At dinner last evening, there was a wild boar, killed on the estate, and in the multiplicity of courses was the strictly local delicacy “’possum and yellow yams.”
The yule logs and holly and the mistletoe all came from the mountain forests about the house.
Tomorrow night there will be a servants’ ball in the great barn to which all guests will lend their presence.
The festivities, which include a fox hunt, a ‘possum hunt, a golf tournament, and a tennis match, will last over New Years day.
(Topeka State Journal [Kansas], 26 December 1895, p. 1)
The New York Journal reported that “On Tuesday afternoon [31 December 1895], a game at the links was attended by the whole party, and the golfers did some clever driving” (Journal [New York], 31December 1896, p. 8).
Estate spokeswoman Lee Ann Donnelly, discussing the history of golf at the Biltmore Estate, recently referred to the Vanderbilt golf tournament:
Historically, as part of the entertainment planned for George Vanderbilt’s first house party in December 1895, golf links were laid out in a field below Biltmore House ….
Letters record rousing golf matches played almost daily throughout the holidays.
(quoted by John Boyle, “North Carolina’s famed Biltmore estate once had a golf course. What happened to it?” Asheville Citizen Times, 12 November 2021. Reprinted Golfweek https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/2021/11/12/golf-course-biltmore-estate asheville-vanderbilts/76473009007/)
It seems, however, that the December course that Davis laid out was merely a provisional course to serve George Vanderbilt’s holiday plans. In the New Year, there was the question of the final version of the layout to be decided.
The Davis Biltmore "Blueprint"
According to Biltmore Estate spokesperson Donnelly, with the holiday party over, “Soon afterward, Vanderbilt commissioned a 9-hole ‘golf ground.’ It is unclear what firm drew up the blueprints, but Vanderbilt was involved in their execution” (quoted by John Boyle, “North Carolina’s famed Biltmore estate once had a golf course. What happened to it?” Asheville Citizen Times, 12 November 2021. Reprinted Golfweek, cited above). The “blueprint” to which she refers seems to be the plan of the course dated “January 6, 1896” (seen below).
Figure 264 Photograph from the Biltmore Estate archives reproduced in John Boyle, “North Carolina’s famed Biltmore estate once had a golf course. What happened to it?” Asheville Citizen Times, 12 November 2021. Reprinted Golfweek https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/2021/11/12/golf-course-biltmore-estate-asheville vanderbilts/76473009007/.
This “blueprint” seems to have been drawn up by Willie Davis. We know from January 1896 items in Golf (London) and the New York Times that Davis was the architect that Vanderbilt commissioned to build his 9-hole course.
And the course map seems to have been drawn during what I take to have been a second visit to Biltmore by Davis.
On the one hand, we know that Davis visited the Biltmore Estate at the beginning of December to prepare a course for play during the Christmas holidays. On the other hand, we know that Davis was on site after the holidays, for a Newport newspaper reported the following information early in January of 1896: “Mr. W.F. Davis, superintendent of the [Newport] Golf Club, has returned from North Carolina where he went for an interview with Mr. George Vanderbilt in connection with the latter’s golf links” (Newport Daily News [Rhode Island], 9 January 1896, p. 8). It seems unlikely that Davis was at Biltmore for a whole month. Rather than staying there right through the Vanderbilt holiday reunion, that is, he probably returned to Newport and then went back to Biltmore “for an interview with George Vanderbilt in connection with the latter’s golf links.”
It may be that for Vanderbilt’s Christmas party in December of 1895, Davis had laid out only a short course, or perhaps just a six-hole course, and that Vanderbilt called him back to Biltmore in January to plan a proper nine-hole course.
Note that, according to Bill Alexander, George Vanderbilt instructed “Newport professional golfer Willie Davis to lay out a nine-hole course between the brick farmhouse and the Lagoon” (Bill Alexander, The Biltmore Estate: Gardens and Grounds [Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2015], p. 110). If this information is geographically accurate, reference to the course map above (which shows the “Brick House” just north of the 1st tee) reveals that Vanderbilt limited Davis’s December golf course to the land where just six of the holes of the nine-hole course on this 1896 map were laid out (comprising most of 4 and 9, as well as 5, 6, 7, and 8).
For 130 years (until the ravages of Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024), the flat fields along the flood plain of the French Broad River where this nine-hole golf course was laid out remained much as they were in 1895, although all traces of the golf course had long since disappeared.
The southern part of this area, where the first three holes, the tee of the 4th, and the green of the 9th were laid out, appears below in Google Maps Streetscape images from the early 2020s.
Figure 265 Annotated Google Maps Streetscape image showing routing of holes 1 to 4 and location of the 9th green.
The central section of the golf course area, where the main part of the 4th hole, all of the 5th hole, and the main part of the 9th hole were laid out, appears below.
Figure 266 Annotated Google Maps Streetscape image showing end of 4th hole, all of 5th hole, and beginning of 9th hole.
The route of the 6th hole from south to north alongside the French Broad river appears below.
Figure 267 Annotated Google Maps Streetscape image showing the route of the 6th hole.
The photograph below shows where the 6th, 7th and 8th holes were laid out.
Figure 268 Annotated Google Maps Streetscape image showing the location of the 6th, 7th, and 8th holes.
The contemporary photographs above show that apart from the “Four Mile Branch” creek at the southern end of the golf course property, and apart from the two creeks and the lagoon at the north end of it, the land where the Davis course was laid out was (and remains) relatively flat and featureless. Consequently, Davis created fairway-wide artificial hazards for a majority of his golf holes – and he located them where they were required according to the tenets of penal golf course architectural theory. The 6 January 1896 drawing of the layout reveals that the 1st hole was a textbook example of penal design.
Figure 269 Detail from "January 6, 1896" course drawing.
The 953-foot 1st hole was a straight two-shot hole with two cross bunkers. The first crossed the fairway 225 feet (75 yards) from the tee box. The second crossed the fairway 121 feet (40 yards) in front of the green. The nature of the cross bunkers is not indicated on the map, but they were probably cop bunkers, which were both the standard artificial hazard of the day and the easiest, most cost-effective and labour-effective way of getting a golf course ready for play in a matter of weeks.
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Note that the golf course began and ended near the junction of Glen Road and River Road, with both the 9th green and the 1st green located here. Glen Road brought golfers down from Biltmore House, of course, but perhaps the most important fact about the location of the 1st tee and 9th green was that they were placed as close as possible to the building marked on the map as the “Brick House” (1.25 miles from Biltmore House).
Figure 270 Brick Farm House, Biltmore estate, Asheville, North Carolina. Circa early 1890s.
Instructing Davis “to lay out a nine-hole course between the brick farmhouse and the Lagoon,” Vanderbilt knew precisely where he wanted his golf course laid out (Bill Alexander, The Biltmore Estate: Gardens and Grounds [Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2015], p. 110).
The “Brick House” marked on the 1896 course map was purchased by Vanderbilt in 1889 and refurbished to serve as his residence whenever he stayed on site between1892 and October of 1895 to supervise construction work on his estate. Also called the “Brick Farm House,” this building may have come to serve as an informal clubhouse for golfers.
Davis’s 2nd and 3rd holes both had cross bunkers to be cleared with the drive.
Figure 271 Detail from "January 6, 1896" course drawing.
The drive on the 680-foot (227-yard) 2nd hole had to clear a cross bunker at 130 feet (43 yards), but there was no cross bunker in front of the green.
Similarly, the drive on the 980-foot (327 yard) 3rd hole had to clear a cross bunker at 240 feet (80 yards), and again there was no cross bunker in front of the green. Was Davis following Park’s advice to allow both run-up and pitch-shot approaches on some holes? (Note also that both River Road and the French Broad River acted as a significant hazard along the entire left side of the 3rd fairway.)
The 1330-foot (443-yard) 4th hole was a classic penal three-shot design.
Figure 272 Detail from the "January 6, 1896" course map.
There was an artificial cross bunker 210 feet (70 yards) from the tee. There was a diagonal River Road hazard at about the 210-yard mark. And Four Mile Branch creek served as a hazard about 100 yards in front of the green. But there was no cross bunker right in front.
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River Road also acted as a parallel hazard along the left side of the 4th fairway for 200 yards, and the French Broad River acted as a parallel hazard along the left side of this fairway for the entire length of the hole.
Figure 273 Detail from "January 6, 1896" course map.
The 745-foot (248-yard) 5th hole was a shorter version of the 1st: a straight two shot hole with two cross bunkers. Although the distances are not marked on the map, the map scale indicated suggests that the first one was about 35 yards from the tee and that the second was about 35 yards in front of the green.
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Davis 6th hole was intended to be his pièce de résistance.
It would be the longest hole on the course, and the approach to the green would be the most difficult and the most dangerous.
Figure 274 Detail from "January 6, 1896" course map.
There was a cross bunker 270 feet (90 yards) in front of the tee box, and the French Broad River constituted the left border of the 1640-foot (547-yard) hole. A hole this long would have been regarded as a four-shotter in 1895.
Complicating the approach to the green was the junction of two ditches (or creeks) about 80 yards in front of the green. Golfers playing close to the river’s edge would have just the one unified ditch to cross, but golfers playing along the fairway farther to the right of the river would f ind that they had to cross two ditches on the way to the green.
And the green itself was located in the Lagoon!
It is unlikely, however, that one played across water to reach the 6th green when Davis was on site in January of 1896, for the area marked on the 1896 course map as a lagoon was still “an ugly tangle of swamp land, unfit for agricultural uses” (Asheville Citizen-Times [North Carolina], 15 September 1897, p. 1).
As Bill Alexander notes, although the Lagoon was planned in March of 1894 (it would have a “minimum depth of five feet of water,” requiring excavation of “17,000 cubic yards of soil to create the dikes” to form it), and although “preliminary work of clearing and preparing the site began in summer of 1894,” the “excavation did not get underway until summer of 1897” (p. 11). It seems likely, then, that Davis would have known where the Lagoon would be: the outlines of the Lagoon on the 6 January 1896 course map correspond almost exactly to the shape of the Lagoon today. So it is significant that Davis located the 6th green (as well as the 7th tee beside it) within the boundaries of the Lagoon: he apparently intended the 6th green to be an island green – probably the first such island green designed in the United States.
The island in question was one of “two natural islands” (they were “from one-fourth to one-half an acre in extent”) that were part of the Lagoon. One of them (seen in the photograph below) was quite near where the 6th green and the 7th tee were located on the 1896 course map.
Figure 275 Detail from a photograph of the Lagoon in Bill Alexander, p. 11.
When Davis laid out the course just before the Lagoon was excavated, he may have used as his green site the first of the “natural” prominences within the marshy area.
Was the 6th hole completed according to Davis’s plans for an island green?
Figure 276 Golf ball appended to the poster on the left. "The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad."
Donnelly implies that it was: “The exceptionally scenic course offered a challenging yet entertaining game, including a treacherous water hazard at the lagoon…. On display [at the Biltmore estate] is a golf ball dating back to 1895 that was found in 2009 by an estate employee while fishing from the southwest banks of the lagoon” (quoted by John Boyle, “North Carolina’s famed Biltmore estate once had a golf course. What happened to it?” Asheville Citizen Times, 12 November 2021. Reprinted Golfweek. Cited above).
This gutta-percha golf ball is displayed on the Biltmore Estate when it offers its “The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad” exhibition (seen in the photograph above to the left).
As we know, Davis planned for the 7th tee to be beside the 6th green on an island in the Lagoon. The drive would have to carry about 35 yards of the Lagoon to reach dry land, and it had to carry a ditch about 90 yards from the tee. This hole was a 635-foot (212-yard) two-shotter without a cross bunker directly in front of the green.
Figure 277 detail from “January 6, 1896” course map.
The 8th hole was a 900-foot (300-yard) two-shotter, with the drive required to carry a ditch about 35 yards in front of the tee and the approach shot required to carry a cross bunker about 35 yards in front of the green.
The photograph below shows two golfers and two caddies standing on the Davis course with River Road appearing behind them (as well as the ditch running parallel to the road along its west side). The angle from which Biltmore House is viewed in this photograph suggests that the golfers were standing in the 8th fairway.
Figure 278 Photograph in Bill Alexander, p. 100. circa 1896. The buildings on the left side of the photograph may be associated with the many saw mills that Olmstead found on the property, which he blamed for the deforested state of the site that he was asked to landscape.
The long home hole – the 1525-foot (508-yard) 9th – required the longest carry from the tee of any of the holes: 310 feet (103 yards).
Figure 279 Detail from "January 6, 1896" course map.
River Road was close to the left side of the fairway for the last half of the hole, encouraging careful golfers to play right of the direct line to the green marked on the map below. But the greatest complication on the hole consisted of the twin dangers posed by the crossing of the fairway (perpendicular to the line of play) by Glen Road (about 50 yards in front of the green) and Four Mile Branch creek (about 35 yards in front of the green).
Apart from the declaration in a Brooklyn newspaper in 1895 that “upon the [Biltmore] estate is one of the finest links in America,” I have found no other references to the quality of the golf course or the experience of playing it. Whether or not it was “one of the finest links in America” in December of 1895, at approximately 3,130 yards in length, it was probably the longest. (Recall that Davis’s Newport course, which had hosted the first U.S. Open just two months earlier, was only 2,755 yards long.)
And the course was soon expanded. As Bill Alexander observes, sometime after Davis laid out the nine-hole course in December and January of 1895-96, “The golf links were … expanded into the Deer Park west of the house and required an annual budget of $2,000. In October 1898, … Vanderbilt ordered the golf links mowed and placed in playing condition and requested cows be kept out of putting greens ….” (The Biltmore Estate: Gardens and Grounds, p. 110). The photograph below shows play upon this new part of the course.
Figure 280 Play upon the Deer Park extension of the Biltmore Estate golf course, circa 1898. Photograph in Bill Alexander, p. 110.
The strategically reforested part of the estate called Deer Park paralleled the 1896 Davis course.
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Who “expanded” the golf course into the Deer Park area is not known. Was Davis involved in this expansion of his original layout?
Neither is it known how the golf holes in these two areas were related. Did they function as separate golf courses? Did they comprise a single – whether of nine or eighteen holes?
Apart from the absence of cross bunkers directly in front of the 3rd, 4th, and 7th putting greens, it is difficult to detect evidence that in laying out the Biltmore course, Davis was following ideas he might have derived from Park. Park would soon recommend side hazards located along fairways and around greens to require golfers to keep to the proper course, but Davis used no side hazards at putting greens and used only the French Broad River and River Road as side hazards. And given the location of these hazards and the fact that the course was laid out clockwise, the river and the road penalized just one kind of shot: the one that was lost to the left.
But the next course that Davis planned – the new nine holes at Newport – show that he was definitely thinking like Park by the end of 1896.
Willie Davis and the New Nine Holes at Newport
Fitzpatrick reported that the new nine holes at Newport were laid out during the week of January 17th to 22nd, 1897, and when he did so, he observed: “It was mainly through the efforts of President T.A. Havemeyer that it was decided to lay out a full course of eighteen holes here” (Sun [New York], 25 January 1897, p. 8).
We recall that Havemeyer’s effort had begun by July of 1895 and that consultation with Park was part of it:
Willie Park will go to Newport … to go over the Newport links with some of the members and offer suggestions regarding them, for Mr. T.A. Havemeyer, as President of the Newport Golf Club, and several of the other members are anxious to have these links the very best that can be made.
(New York Times, 14 July 1895, p. 19)
If this description of Havemeyer’s ambition – he is “anxious to have these links the very best that can be made” – is based on his own words, very similar words used in a newspaper report from October of 1896 might also be his: “The Newport Golf Club intends to own the best and most complete links in the country” (New York Times, 4 October 1896, p. 10).
In the same October 1896 newspaper report, the land targeted for the nine new holes was identified:
Extensive changes about Newport golf links are expected to be made during the Winter and Spring [1896-97], the purpose being to lay out a full course of eighteen holes ….
The course in use here at present is of nine holes, and to complete a full championship round of eighteen holes, it is necessary to cover it twice.
The golf club has plenty of land which may be turned into links lying off to the eastward of the present course, and it is this ground that is to be improved for the purpose of the game.
It is estimated that about $2,000 will be required for the work. (New York Times, 4 October 1896, p. 10)
This report suggests that the plans for the new nine holes had been committed to paper by this point.
The news that the eastern “ground is to be improved for the purpose of the game” uses the word “improve” in the same way the Providence Evening Telegram used this word when referring to the course to be laid out on the Gammell property: “the club will make such improvements as are necessary for the game” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 22 April 1893], p. 5).
In the nineteenth century, as we know, the word “improvements” was used both in North America and in the British Isles to refer to the designing and redesigning of golf holes:
Golf is not new to Watch Hill, for a fine nine-hole course was laid out there by Willie Park two years ago [1895], and he visited it last year [1896] and suggested some improvements.
(New York Times, 13 June 1897, p. 20, emphasis added).
Some improvements are being made by W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, to Dr. W. Seward Webb’s links at Shelburne Farms, Vt.
(New York Herald, 18 October 1895, emphasis added)
The new green keeper [Horace Rawlins] says the Sadaquada Club links are a bit short just at present, but …. he believes that when the improvements planned are carried out, the result will be a fine sporting course, one of the best of any inland city on the continent.
(Utica Observer [New York], 4 April 1896, p. 5, emphasis added)
Considerable improvements have recently been made in the [golf] ground [at Hoylake]. The bunker at the first hole has been lengthened and enlarged, while a new bunker has been introduced at “the briers” [sic], the seventh hole.
(Field, 26 July 1873, p. 89, emphasis added).
By the beginning of October of 1896, Davis’s plans for “improvements” (there would be construction of bunkers and putting greens, clearing of brush from sites designated for fairways, teeing grounds, and putting greens, as well as the adding and widening of drainages, and so on) was sufficiently detailed for the Club to have estimated the cost of these improvements – effectively, the cost of the new nine holes: $2,000.
Ironically, although I argue that Davis deserves recognition for the significant architectural advance represented by his new nine-hole layout at Newport, the New York Sun’s Fitzpatrick initially attributed this layout to someone else: “The new course of the Newport Golf Club was laid out by A.M. Coats of the Greens Committee last week [the week of 17 to 22 January, 1897]” (Sun [New York], 25 January 1897, p. 8).
As was often the case in the 1890s, this was a case of the credit for a layout being attributed to a gentleman member of the Club rather than to the golf professional employed by the Club. A more accurate account of the design of the new nine holes was provided by the editor of The Golfer as the course was being built in the spring of 1897:
The Newport Golf Club is now having its course extended and by the middle of July, when the work of alteration is expected to be finished, members and visiting players may play over a links second to none in the country.
The course was laid out by W.F. Davis, the resident professional and club-maker, and approved by A.M. Coats of the Greens Committee who has made it his business to look after the condition of the grounds and … everything pertaining to the welfare of sojourning players of this classic summer resort.
(The Golfer [Boston], May 1897, p. 21)
Born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1869, Alfred Mainwaring Coats was one of several children of Sir James P. Coats:
Sir James Coats, head of the great thread company in Paisley, Renfrewshire, whose wife was Miss Mary Auchinloss of New York City, …. took up the production of Paisley shawls at the instance of Queen Victoria, who was a heavy financial supporter of the industry and gave the shawls a wide vogue by invariably presenting one as a wedding gift to all the brides of that period.
But Sir James had a long head and he laid the foundation of the thread industry to replace the shawls when their popularity ended, as it did very soon.
Alfred M. Coats is one of the several sons of Sir James born in Rhode Island and who has steadily refused to accept a title or renounce his American citizenship for the British.
(Evening Star [Washington, D.C.], 21 October 1923, p. 45)
Coats learned his golf at Prestwick in Scotland but became a member at St. Andrews. For many years, he returned annually to play golf at various clubs throughout Scotland and England.
In the United States, he played initially at several American clubs. He was a member of the Agawam Hunt Club in Providence, the city on which he lived and where he oversaw the J. & P. Coats Company after graduating from Yale University in the early 1890s and where he probably played a role in bringing Willie Park, Jr, to the Club to design its course in 1895. He was also a member of the Country Club at Brookline, where he provided stiff competition for club champion Herbert C. Leeds. And, of course, he was a member of the Newport Golf Club, which he made his home club (although he also remained a member at Agawam) as he prepared for the 1896 U.S. amateur Championship (in which he would lose in a semifinal match against eventual winner H.J. Whigham): “A.M. Coats, of the Agawam Hunt Club, Providence, has gone to Newport, R.I., to put himself into training for the amateur championship. He will be coached by William Davies [sic]” (Boston Evening Transcript, 13 June 1896, p. 7).
Figure 281 A.M. Coats and an unidentified caddie at Morris County Golf Club, Morristown, New Jersey, in 1898.
The golf writer for the Chicago Tribune profiled Coats ahead of the 1897 U.S. Open at Wheaton:
A.M. Coats is entered from Newport Golf Club, Newport, R.I. Mr. Coats is the champion of his club and holds the [amateur] record for the Newport links….
He is a Scotchman and learned the game at Prestwick and has played the game considerably at St. Andrews and through England and Scotland generally.
He plays what a Scotchman would call a grand game …. He is correct in everything, driving, approaching, and putting, and is without a tremor while playing.
His Newport friends expect great things from him this time …. Mr. Coats’ modesty would not permit him to speak of his chances in the tournament.
(Chicago Tribune, 13 September 1897, p. 2)
Since 1895, Davis had played frequently with Coats and so spoke knowledgeably about his abilities to a reporter for the Providence Evening Telegram in the spring of 1896: Mr. Davis says … he thinks some American players are showing remarkable progress and compares a few with players abroad. He considers C.B. Macdonald and A.M. Coats, of this city, about equal in ability. Either is easily … 6 strokes … better than any American golfer he knows. (Evening Telegram [Providence, R.I.), 31 March 1896, p. 6). Davis then compared Coats to the best British player he knew – his cousin, John Ball, Jr: Mr. Coats’ handicap at St. Andrews, Scotland, is 6 strokes, which would make the scratch players at St. Andrews 12 strokes better than our [American] players…. Mr. John Ball plays 9 below [scratch] at Hoylake, so that would put … Mr. Ball 22 better than our best players. (Evening Telegram [Providence, R.I.), 31 March 1896, p. 6). Coats was elected to the Greens Committee in June of 1896. He no doubt worked closely with Davis in planning the new nine holes.
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Fitzpatrick reported in January of 1897: “It is not the intention of the Greens Committee to change the direction of any of the links in use last season [1896] or to alter the location of any of the greens” (Sun [New York], 25 January 1897, p. 8). It is likely that the Greens Committee had been given great confidence in its Davis golf course by Willie Park’s positive assessment of it in July of 1895. We recall that when a local Rhode Island newspaper asked Park about his impressions of the layout, he made clear that he approved of Davis’s design work: “The Newport course is a very good one …. The hazards are placed in proper positions, the distances of the holes are proper” (The Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 18 July 1895, p. 6). Park implicitly acknowledged that Davis had designed a properly penal course with hazards placed at the required distances to force far and sure carries for drives, second shots, and third shots. As we know, however, within months of making these approving statements about Davis’s design, Park would criticize the systematic placement of cross bunkers in front of putting greens: There is a great cry nowadays that every hole should have a hazard in front requiring to be lofted over, but I think it is possible to carry a system of this kind too far. It ties players down to pitching all their approaches instead of making them exercise their judgement as to whether the ball should be lofted or run up. (The Game of Golf, pp. 204-205) That is, Park criticized precisely the strategy that Davis had used on his first nine holes at Newport, where his layout required a pitch over a sand pot bunker on the championship version of his 1st hole; required a carry onto the green over his cop bunkers on the 3rd; required a dead carry to the 4th green over a swamp; required a carry over tall cop bunkers to reach the 5th green; required a carry over a cross bunker “close to the hole” on the 6th; required a carry over a semicircular bunker surrounding the 7th green; and required a carry over an “open bunker” ranged right across the front of the 8th green. Only the 2nd and 9th holes seem not to have had a hazard to carry placed directly in front of the green. As we know, Park argued in 1896 that varying the placement of hazards, reducing the number of cross bunkers, modifying the construction of cop bunkers, and using side hazards on fairways and greens would force golfers to make decisions about the best line of play for each drive and each approach shot. At Newport, Davis laid out a new course of nine holes that did these things. Indeed, it is as though the new course were designed by implementing Park’s advice.
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For its new nine holes, the Newport Colf Club leased from the Newport Country Club a large portion of the latter’s property to the east of the clubhouse: “The new course of nine holes … lies east of the clubhouse …. These holes lay to the south of the polo field” (Boston Globe, 1 September 1897, p. 5). The Newport Golf Club was an organization legally separate from the Newport Country Club. The latter, which opened its magnificent clubhouse in 1895, owned the land that the Newport Golf Club leased for its nine-hole course. Yet even though the Newport Golf Club had not yet leased land for another nine holes when Park was on site in July of 1895, the golfers knew at that point that the “eastward” land was potentially available from the Country Club and that this land was the most logical target for developing nine more holes. One of the reasons that Park was called to Newport in 1895 must have been to “offer suggestions” as to whether and how this land might be developed into golf holes – a layout “the very best that can be made” so that Newport would have “the best and most complete links in the country.” The plan was to build nine new holes in during the winter of 1895-96, but that plan changed in February of 1896: “The Newport golf course will not be enlarged to eighteen holes this coming year [1896]. That idea has been abandoned” (New York Times, 16 February 1896, p. 6) The Country Club’s polo field was not available for the new golf holes. Tens of thousands of dollars would be spent on this field between 1894 and 1898, but this part of the property could never be made to drain properly. Indeed, parts of the area were said to be below sea level. Even when it was in its best condition ever, test play with a number of experienced polo players and horses demonstrated that the field could not provide a turf firm enough for the game to be played safely on it. And so, the Newport Country Club finally gave up on the polo field in August of 1898 and eventually also leased this part of its property to the Newport Golf Club, which laid out a short beginners’ course on it in 1900 (New York Times, 1 July 1900, p. 18). And so, in July of 1895, when Davis and Park first considered where nine holes might be laid out to supplement the existing nine-hole course, they were forced to limit their ambition to the eastern part of the property that was south of the polo field. The history of the development of many of the golf holes on this eastern part of the Club’s property is represented on a curious map of the Newport Golf Club’s course as it existed in 1915. This map turns out to be a palimpsest: it was first drawn up between September of 1899 and August of 1900. As changes were made to the layout over the years, rectangles and lines that represented old tee boxes, lines drawn to mark old fairways, and squares representing old putting greens were rubbed out and replaced with new rectangles and lines. “Corrected to Sept. 1st, 1915,” the map represents the final “improvement” work done on the course. See below.
Figure 282 1915 map. Waterman, p 166.
Beneath the depiction of the 18-hole course as it existed in 1915 lie traces of Davis’s nine holes as laid out in 1897. We know that it was essentially the original 1897 nine-hole layout drawn on 16 September 1899 because the course that existed at the end of the summer of 1899 remained the course that Davis laid out at the beginning of 1897: the hole-by-hole description of the course in The Golfer in May of 1897 accords with the publication of the names and yardages of these holes in the Boston Evening Transcript in 1898, and these 1898 yardages accord precisely with the yardages published in the Boston Globe on 29 August 1899 – about two weeks before the original version of the map above was produced (The Golfer, vol 5 no 1 [May 1897], p. 21; Boston Evening Transcript, 9 July 1898, p. 6 and Boston Globe, 29 August 1899, p. 2).
Fortunately, the original 1897 design was not completely erased during subsequent revision of the map, and one can still make out on the 1915 map the faint markings of all nine of Davis’s original holes. I highlight on the image of the map below the traces of the 1897 layout as represented by partially rubbed out rectangles marking tee boxes, lines marking the course of fairways, and rectangles marking putting greens.
Figure 283 Annotated version of 1915 map. Waterman, p. 166. Orange lines mark the fairways of Davis’s 1897 holes. Purple lines mark the fairways of Davis’s 1895 holes. Tee boxes are yellow; putting greens are green.
The 1897 course description was produced by the editor of The Golfer. It is not clear, however, how he acquired his information about the course, for he writes ambiguously as follows:
Mr. Coats has gone abroad but before leaving, he went carefully over the details of change and expressed his belief that it would be a fine sporting course and that visitors coming here for the open tournament in the early fall will have ample opportunity to use every club in their set as a round of the links calls for an endless variety of golf.
(The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21).
Does the editor mean that he interviewed Coats: “Mr. Coats … went carefully over the details of change [with me] and expressed his belief [to me] that it would be a fine sporting course”? Or, instead, does he mean to suggest that he went to Newport to inspect the new course and learned the following: “Mr. Coats has gone abroad but before leaving, he went carefully over the details of change [with his Green Committee] and expressed his belief [to the Green Committee] that it would be a fine sporting course”?
Note that since the editor lived in Boston, when he writes that “visitors coming here for the open tournament in the early fall will have ample opportunity to use every club in their set,” he seems to indicate by the word “here” that he is in Newport as he writes (emphasis added). If so, since Coats had gone abroad, it may well have been Davis who introduced the editor to the layout and explained how the holes would play for various golfers. In his review, the editor may convey the information and opinions of Davis – perhaps, from time to time, even using Davis’s own words.
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Hole 1: Punch Bowl (200 yards projected May 1897, 180 to 185 yards in fact in 1898 & 1899)
The editor of The Golfer writes:
First hole, 200 yards, lies in a hollow to the north of the clubhouse and may be reached with a good drive.
Figure 284 Annotated detail from 1915 map. Waterman, p 166.
As the tee is several feet above the level of the green, a pulled ball will leave a very difficult approach over a lumpy hillock…
A sliced ball is punished in long grass and also leaves the approach to be played over an open bunker …
And a topped ball is caught in sand bunkers put there for the purpose.
(The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21)
Late in the summer of 1898, in match during the Newport golf club’s annual open amateur tournament, one of the competitors tried to reach the 1st green with an iron but it “landed in the long grass short of the green” – which suggests that Davis used long grass as a cross bunker here (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8). The road near the stables also served as a hazard, for another player “overreached the green with his drive and fell in the road behind the bunker” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
The 1897 1st tee was located outside Davis’s work shop, which is where one of the tees for the 1st hole of the 1895 course was located. Perhaps as of 1897, this tee box served for the 1st hole of each nine. Alternatively, it may have been the decision to start the 1897 layout at this tee box that led to the move of the 1st tee of the 1895 layout to a place beside the clubhouse.
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Note that as for Willie Park, so for Davis: it was on one-shot holes like the 1897 1st hole that a fairway-wide cross bunker was still regularly deployed. Otherwise, as recommended by Park, Davis forced players hitting left or right of the proper line to undertake a “difficult approach” over a “lumpy hillock” or “open bunker” – the latter shot to be undertaken from “long grass.”
Hole 2: The Bridge (375 yards projected 1897, 350 to 375 yards in 1898 and 1899)
On the two-shot hole 2nd hole, Davis used no cross bunkers. Instead, as Park had recommended eight months earlier, side hazards were used to discipline golfers in the art of “keeping to the proper course.” As the editor observes:
Hole No 2, 375 yards, is a long, level stretch where trouble can be easily avoided by holding to a straight course.
Bad ground on the right and open bunkers await the sliced and pulled balls.
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(The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21)
Figure 285 Annotated detail from 1915 map. Waterman, p 166. It is not clear whether the lone bunker (highlighted blue) on the detail from the 1915 map shown above was part of the two or more “open bunkers” that were on the left side of the 1897 2nd hole.
The photograph below shows play on Davis’s 1897 2nd green in a match between Campbell and Dixon in Newport’s invitational amateur tournament of August 1901: in the background is the clubhouse, as well as the office building and the golf professional’s work shop, alongside of which ran the second fairway – “the bad ground on the right” of the fairway being visible around the base of the hill on which the buildings stand.
Figure 286 Official Golf Guide of 1902. Ed. Van Tassel Sutphen. p. 307. In 1901, rather than playing as the 2nd hole, this hole played as the 11th (the number 11 appearing on the disc that the caddie holds in front of his face).
It seems likely that the 2nd hole played as a dogleg that gently turned to the right – following the level ground at the bottom of the hill on which the buildings were set (a route implied by the contour lines on the 1915 map). In terms of the photograph above, the tee box for the 2nd hole was to the right beyond the office building and golf professional’s workshop to the right of the clubhouse.
Hole 3: Polo (projected 335 yards 1897, 333 to 360 yards in 1898 and 1899)
According to the editor, the 3rd hole “is toward the polo field and should be reached in two as the lies are all good through the green …. An open bunker guards the green on the left and rough ground and long grass on the right” (The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21).
Figure 287 Annotated detail from 1915 map. Waterman, p. 166.
There were no cross bunkers on the 3rd hole – either for the tee shot or for the approach shot – but there was trouble on each side of the green (to force golfers to keep to the proper course). On the 1915 map seen to the left, there seems to be no trace remaining of the 1897 “open bunker [guarding] the green on the left.”
Hole 4: Pond (projected 120 yards 1897, 110 to 127 yards in 1898 and 1899)
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The Fourth Hole, 120 yards, is across a pond into which the polo field is drained….
The pond is about sixty yards across and should a player in his anxiety to be over play too hard, he may get caught in a ditch beyond the hole.
In 1898, the grass around the pond was kept long so that to clear the hazard required a carry over more than just the water (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
Hole 5: Willow Tree (420 yards projected 1897, 420 to 425 yards in 1898 and 1899)
According to the editor, the 5th hole was another one that required players to stay in the fairway – or, as Park put it, to “keep to the proper course”:
Hole No. 5, 420 yards, is a long, sporting hole where a player must needs keep straight or there will be a big figure against him on the score card.
Figure 288 Annotated detail from 1915 map. Waterman, p. 166.
Once on the green, a splendid piece of turf awaits him where he should hole out in two. (The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21)
Curiously, although keeping to the fairway was extremely important, there is no explanation of the score-wrecking trouble that confronted a golfer who did not keep straight.
But the 1915 map shown above suggests a number of things.
The map shows two old tee boxes for the 5th hole, both of which required the drive to carry over the pond that featured on the previous hole. There is no mention of such a fearsome, unforgiving “cross bunker” by the editor in his May 1897 review, but during the 1898 amateur tournament, we know that a player “drove into the pond on the fifth hole” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8). The same thing happened in the same tournament exactly two years later, when the hole played as the 14th: leaving his opponent dormie, a struggling player “drove into the pond in playing for the 14th hole” (Boston Globe, 2 September 1900, p. 4).
Clearing such a cross bunker was obviously imperative, but the drive over the pond was not, per se, about the need to keep straight that the editor of The Golfer regarded as the sine qua non of play on the hole.
Interestingly, the competitor who drove into the pond on the 5th hole then “managed to get into more than his fair share of the bunkers” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8). Similarly, in another match in the 1898 tournament, another player on the 5th hole “was trapped by two bunkers and gave up the hole” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
The editor of The Golfer mentions no such bunkers, but they seem to be represented on the map above by three oblong shapes near the centre of the fairway grouped between 120 and 180 yards from the tee, by a small circle further along the right of the fairway’s centre line about 220 yards from the tee, and by another oblong circle (perpendicular to the line of play) about 210 yards from the tee. These images on the map probably represent the open sand bunkers that bedevilled at least two competitors in the Club’s 1898 amateur tournament.
Such bunkers could be avoided by holding a straight course (in various directions) with the drive.
The also map indicates that there was a ditch along the entire left side of the 5th hole and that it approached the fairway at an oblique angle until for the last 80 yards of the hole it paralleled the fairway, which was thereby made relatively narrow – requiring the golfer to “keep straight” on the approach to the green.
Figure 289 Henry O. Havemeyer album 1899 photograph. Newport Historical Society.
And the map shows that the fairway was made even more narrow by the hole’s namesake: a willow tree (seen to the left).
Note that there was at least one other tree right beside the willow. The canopies of these trees seem to have become intertwined.
Late in the summer of 1897, for instance, during the first tournament played on the new 18-hole course, a competitor recorded a big figure against him on this hole precisely because of this obstacle:
R[obert] W. Goelet had a peculiar experience in driving through a tangled mass of trees just before the fifth hole, his ball lodging in the fork of a tree.
He lost two strokes in trying to recover playing position, there being no local rule on the point ….
(The Golfer, vol 5 no 6 [October 1897], p. 241)
Seen below, in a photograph of the 5th hole from the summer of 1899, there was a large rectangular bunker guarding the approach to the 5th green.
Figure 290 Detail from 1899 photograph in Henry O. Havemeyer album. Newport Historical Society.
It is not clear whether this bunker crossed the entire front of the green or left a route onto the left side of the green for a running approach shot.
Figure 291 Anna Sands. Golf (New York), vol 13 no 6 (December 1903), p. 369.
It was over this bunker that the women members at Newport conducted their approaching and putting competition in September of 1898.
Fresh off victory in the driving competition (her winning drive was 164 yards), “Miss Anna Sands” (1864-1932) was victorious again.
She won “the trophy in the approaching and putting competition” by “approaching over a bunker to the fifth green and holing out three balls in nine strokes” (New York Times, 25 September 1898, p. 5).
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Hole 6: Life Station (335 yards projected 1897, 344 to 360 yards in 1898 and 1899)
This hole was presumably named after the Brenton Point Life Saving Station built on Price’s Neck in 1884 (subsequently destroyed by the hurricane of 1938). The 6th green was the part of the Club’s property closest to this landmark, which would have been visible from the clubhouse as one looked to this southeast corner of the property, and might even have been visible from the 6th green.
Figure 292 Brenton Point Life saving Station at Price's Neck, circa 1890.
The U.S. Life Saving Service commissioned an architect to design a more elaborate station than normal for several New England sites, including the one at Brenton Point, where its Queen Anne style was expected to prove relatively consonant with the elaborate architecture of the many great mansions in the neighbourhood.
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The editor of The Golfer observes:
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The Sixth Hole, 335 yards, lies at the south end of the club property.
Figure 293 Annotated detail from the 1915 map. Waterman p. 166. I mark 6th tee A and 6th tee B on the map above as a possible explanation for the fact that the hole played from 335 to 360 yards between 1897 and 1901.
A glance will show that a player will need to be very careful to avoid troubles, as a big open ditch runs parallel with and intersects the course [of the fairway] from teeing ground to putting green….
(The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21)
Golfers had to keep left of the open ditch along the right side of the fairway, but they could not go too far left, for the property line marked out-of-bounds all along the left side of the fairway.
Figure 294 Annotated Henry O. Havemeyer photograph. Dated 1922. Newport Historical Society.
The putting green was placed in a magnificent location with an open ditch in front of it, as well as to the left of it, and beyond it there was a road bordered by trees (Price’s Neck Avenue).
Hole 7: Westward Ho (400 yards projected 1897; 340 to 400 yards in 1898 and 1899)
Regarding the 7th hole, the editor once again warned about the importance of keeping to the proper course: “Hole No. 7, 400 yards, is an old No. 2 Green, and lots of trouble is in store for him who fails to keep the line” (The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21).
This hole ran alongside Price’s Neck Avenue from east to west.
Figure 295 Annotated Henry O. Havemeyer photograph. Dated 1922.
One “trouble” (among the “lots of trouble in store for him who fails to keep the line”) was presumably Prices Neck Avenue which marked out-of-bounds along the entire left-hand side of the hole. But short of going out of bounds, golfers still faced a problem should they hug the left side of the fairway: there was “a fence as hazard” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
Figure 296 Annotated detail from 1915 map. Waterman p. 166.
Another “trouble” was probably the rough ground, ridges, and mounds paralleling the last half of the fairway along the right-hand side. This area was kept as “high grass” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8).
Unmentioned by the editor, Davis also had “a bunker guarding the green” (New York Tribune, 2 September 1898, p. 8). It does not seem to have been a cross bunker.
Hole 8: Long Stretch (350 yards projected May 1897; 375 to 445 yards in 1898 and 1899)
The editor says: “The Eighth Hole, 350 yards, is back again towards No. 2 [putting green] with rough ground and shallow ditches to be avoided” (The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21).
Figure 297 Annotated Henry O. Havemeyer photograph. Dated 1922.
Shallow fairway ditches are perhaps detectable as faint lines in the 1922 photograph above.
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But if so, they are not necessarily the shallow ditches that seem to be marked on the 1915 map. And any such ditches on the 1915 map are not necessarily the ditches in place when the editor wrote his review in May of 1897. Drainage was a perpetual problem on the eastern portion of the Club’s property, and new drainage solutions were always being attempted. One ditch that was certainly in place in 1897, 1915, and 1922, however, was the open ditch separating the 8th fairway from the 6th fairway.
Rough ground (comprising long grass, mounds, and ridges) between the 8th fairway and the 7th fairway was to be avoided with the drive, and rough ground left of the green was to be avoided with the approach shot.
Rough ground and a shallow dry ditch on the left and the fairway-bordering open ditch on the right required golfers to keep the line, but a bunker protruding part way into the left side of the fairway short of the green meant that the best way to approach the green to avoid this bunker was from the right side of the fairway – and as near to the open ditch as one dared to go.
Figure 298 Annotated Henry O. Havemeyer photograph. Dated 1899.
Hole 9: The Knoll (projected 150 yards May 1897; 150 yards in 1898 and 1899)
Ninth Hole, 150 yards, is a nice sporting hole lying on top of a knoll immediately in front of Davis’s work shop.
It is guarded by open bunkers round the base of the knoll but should be easily reached with a good cleek shot or an easy drive.
(The Golfer, vol. 5 no. 1 [May1897], p. 21)
This hole can be seen in the 1901 photograph below.
Figure 299 Official Golf Guide of 1902. Ed. Van Tassel Sutphen. p. 307. The caddie holds a disc hole marker that says "11" because in 1901, the nine-hole circuits were reversed: the person putting is on the 1897 2nd putting green.
Beyond the 2nd green in the foreground is the bunker around the bottom of the knoll on which the 9th green was perched. The start of the bunker on the right is indicated by the hazard marking flag used at Newport since the 1895 USGA Championship.
Figure 300 Annotated detail from a 1922 photograph by Herbert O. Havemeyer.
Willie Park and the Official Opening of the New Newport Course
Davis’s 1897 layout at Newport was a radical departure from his previous penal design philosophy.
His new nine holes were in accord with ideas Park articulated in The Game of Golf. There were cross bunkers to be carried on the par-3 holes (sand bunkers on the 1st, a pond on the 4th, bunkers at the base of the knoll hosting the 9th green), and there was a ditch that cut diagonally across the sixth fairway in front of the 6th green, but a cross hazard directly in front of the putting green on a two-shot or three-shot hole was a rarity. Hazards on many two-shotters and three shotters were found precisely where Willie Park said they should be placed: along the sides of fairways and/or putting greens to punish sliced and pulled balls and thereby encourage golfers “to keep to the proper course.”
Figure 301 Title page of The Game of Golf, 1896.
And, as we shall see in the next chapter, the five bunkers on Davis’s 1897 5th hole seem to have been inspired by Park’s argument in The Game of Golf that fairway bunkers on the line of play are architecturally legitimate hazards.
Perhaps Davis and Park had talked about new bunkering strategies when they met in mid-July 1895.
Perhaps Davis read The Game of Golf when it appeared in the United States in April of 1896 and took Park’s suggestions to heart regarding variation in the placement of hazards.
And perhaps Park visited Newport again in 1896, when he returned to the United states for 25 days between the middle of July and the middle of August.
Park was interestingly – and consistently – associated with the new nine holes at Newport as soon as they were laid out:
Newport, Jan. 24 – The new course of the Newport Golf Club was laid out by A.M. Coats of the Greens Committee last week, and as soon as spring opens it will be constructed.
The Club has leased more land from the Newport Country Club and when the additional links are constructed, the course of the Newport Club will be of full eighteen holes.
The new course will probably be opened in June with a match between W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club, and Willie Park.
(Sun [New York], 25 January 1897, p. 8)
In February of 1897, Park was again mentioned in connection with the opening of the new golf course:
Newport is to have one of the finest golf courses in the country.
The golf club has leased additional land from the Newport Country Club for nine new holes, and will have an 18-hole course, the construction of which will begin in the spring.
The enlarged links will be opened with a match between Willie Park and W.F. Davis, the professional of the Newport Club.
(Philadelphia Times [Pennsylvania], 13 February 1897, p. 8)
What was “probable” in January now seems certain: the new course “will” be opened by a match between Park and Davis.
Who or what was the source of this information?
As the Club’s professional and as the course designer, Davis would have played in a match to open the new layout as a matter of course. But why should Park have been considered for such an event?
By the time of the proposed match in the spring of 1897, it would have been almost two years since Park’s only known visit to the Newport Golf Club in the summer of 1895. Had he remained in contact with the Club?
Park had “paid a flying visit” to the United States during the summer of 1896, but it is unclear whether he visited Newport (Sun [New York], 24 January 1897, p. 25). After opening a branch of William Park & Sons in New York in 1895, he returned in 1896 to check on it. He had also intended to play in the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills on Saturday, 18 July 1896, but he did not arrive in time to do so.
Still, his twenty-five days in the United States in 1896 were productive. On the one hand, he issued “a challenge to play any professional in the country for any amount, James Foulis of Chicago [1896 US Open Champion] preferred,” a challenge that Willie Dunn accepted (Boston Evening Transcript, 21 July 1896, p. 3). On the other hand, Park also laid out or improved several golf courses, one of his endeavours involving a return to Rhode Island: “Golf is not new to Watch Hill, for a fine nine-hole course was laid out there by Willie Park two years ago [1895], and he visited it last year [1896] and suggested some improvements” (New York Times, 13 June 1897, p. 20).
Since he was travelling to Rhode Island late in July or early in August of 1896, Park could easily have combined a visit to Newport with his visit to Watch Hill, just as he had done in 1895, when he went down to Watch Hill after his last match against Davis at Newport.
Park may have talked to New York golf reporters about a likely visit to Newport. The New York Journal reported that a match between Park and Davis was in August:
It is believed that the match for $200 a side between Willie Dunn and Willie Park, Jr, is only the beginning of a number of other professional matches that will be played in the near future, and prominent among others that will be matched against Park, it is believed, will be Davis of the Newport Golf Club, who beat Park last year by 1 up ….
(New York Journal, 3 August 1896, p. 8)
In due course, a match was indeed proposed:
Willie Park, Jr., the celebrated Scotch professional, who sailed for home last Wednesday, had hardly stepped on board the Teutonic when a telegram came from the Newport Golf Club offering to make a 36-hole match between him and Willie Davis, the Newport professional, for $30.
Had the notice arrived a day earlier, Park would probably have remained to play the match.
(The World [New York], 16 August 1896, p. 13)
The newspaper got the purse wrong (it would have taken much more than the prospect of winning $30 to have tempted Park to stay longer!):
Willie Park, Jr., … before sailing for England about two weeks ago, was challenged on behalf of W.F. Davis to play a thirty-six hole match for $150.
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If the challenge had arrived a little sooner, Park would have accommodated Davis and some great work on the links would be witnessed.
(Philadelphia Times [Pennsylvania], 23 August 1896, p. 26)
Clearly, at the beginning of August, members at the Newport Golf Club were aware of Park’s presence in the United States, consulted with Davis about a match with Park, and were organizing contributions to a purse lucrative enough to bring him to play.
On his way to or from Watch Hill, had Park visited Davis and raised the possibility of a rematch with him – providing members of the Club would put up a proper purse?
Had Park perhaps been called to Newport to consult again with the Club about its plans for nine new holes?
Of Park’s consultation work in 1896, we know only of his visits to St. Andrews and Watch Hill, but the New York Journal implied on his arrival in New York that Park had more than two courses to look over: “This trip is combined with business and while here, he will inspect the laying out of several golf courses and may possibly suggest some very important changes to old courses” (New York Journal, 21 July 1896, p. 11).
So, perhaps Park had renewed his acquaintance with Davis and the Newport Club Directors in August of 1896 – once again talking to them about their plans not just “to own the best and most complete links in the country,” but also “to have these links the very best that can be made.” If so, it would have been natural enough to have looked forward to a match between Park and Davis to open the new course.
Note that the fact that, at the beginning of 1897, the Club was thinking of Park as the one to participate in the official opening of the new course is not explained by the fact that he was the only famous golf professional who had so far come to the United States to play in money matches.
By 1896, there was regular talk in the newspapers of other British stars interested in visiting the United States, such as two-time Open Champion J.H. Taylor, who was rumoured to pondering an invitation to play a match against Willie Dunn to open the latter’s recently designed Ardsley Casino course. Taylor admitted that the prospect interested him:
There is little doubt … but that I should enjoy a trip to America could satisfactory arrangements be arrived at, presuming, of course, that the Monroe doctrine does not apply to golf and that, at least, we are no worse friends with Americans than we are at present.
(J.H. Taylor, Golfing [sic, London], cited in the Sun [New York], 22 February 1896, p. 4).
And then it was reported that “Taylor will probably be accompanied by Hugh Kirkcaldy, an … ex champion, and some interesting professional golfing can be looked for” (New York Tribune, 8 March 1896, p. 8).
Figure 302 At the 1894 Open Championship at Royal St. George’s Golf Club at Sandwich, Kent, Willie Park, Jr, stands behind the winner, J.H. Taylor.
If the Newport Golf Club hoped merely to arrange a match between Davis and a British star, why fix on ex-champion Park (1887, 1889) instead of more recent ex-champion Kirkcaldy (1891) or even more recent ex-champion Taylor (1894, 1895)?
Early in January of 1897, the New York Sun’s Hugh Fitzpatrick talked to Park’s American business manager, Peter Blair, and the latter apparently told him that Park’s return to America was uncertain, but that if he were to come, it would be because Blair had achieved that “outcome”:
Willie Park, Jr’s American manager, Peter Blair, will sail today [13 January 1897] on the Majestic. He will go to Musselburgh direct and later to London, returning in about sixty days.
An outcome of his visit may be the appearance of Park, accompanied by J.H. Taylor, Alex Hurd, Douglass Rolland, one of the Kirkaldies [sic], Harry Vardon, or some player of equal fame, in this country next summer [1897].
(Sun [New York], 13 January 1897, p. 5)
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With Blair literally at sea, Fitzpatrick published the news that Park was likely to play Davis to open the course in the spring. From whom did Fitzpatrick receive this news?
From 1895 onward, Fitpatrick often mentioned in the Sun that he had received a letter from Park about this or that. Had Park written to him about a plan to play Davis? Or had someone at Newport – perhaps Davis himself – let Fitzpatrick know of Park’s plan?
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Either way, it would mean that Park had been exchanging letters with a representative of the Newport Golf Club. And so the change from the January report that he would “probably” play Davis to the February report that he definitely “will” play Davis would imply that further communication had confirmed the plan.
Was the proposed match conceived as a way of acknowledging that Park deserved recognition for his contributions to the new course?
By mid-March, however, Patrick had told Fitzpatrick to expect a later arrival: “Willie Park, Jr., writes that he …. will visit this country in September” (Sun [New York], 22 March 1897, p. 8). Then in September came news of another change of plans: “Willie Park, Jr., the ex-champion of Great Britain, who makes an annual trip to this country, has been an expected starter in the open championship at Chicago, but he has cabled that he will not be able to get to this country before October” (Pittsburgh Press [Pennsylvania], 5 September 1897, p. 22). This cable was sent to his brother Mungo, who had been in the United States since the beginning of the year.
Although Park did not participate in an official opening of the new Davis layout, it is evident that the Newport Golf Club had a special regard for Park and that Park had a special regard for the Newport Golf Club – whether for Havemeyer in particular, or for the directors of the Club more generally, or for Davis (for whom he seems to have developed a professional, and perhaps personal, respect), or for the new golf course (whose layout he may have discussed with Davis and Club directors on more than one occasion).
The Principal's Nose, Stuart's Neb, and the Newport Proboscis
Perhaps the most interesting question concerning the contributions of Park and Davis to the birth of modern golf course architecture concerns their attitude toward the placement of a bunker on the direct line to the hole.
Figure 303 John Laing Low (1869-1929) John Archibald Stuart Paton (1872-1946). Sketches owned by the Woking Golf Club.
John Low is rightly celebrated for his work with Stuart Paton in placing two bunkers in the centre line of the 4th fairway at Woking Golf Club around 1902.
In his excellent and important article on this topic, “John Low, Woking and Modern Golf Architecture,” Robert Crosby argues that the creation of these two Woking bunkers played the “pivotal role in founding the strategic school of golf architecture” (Through the Green, September 2009, p. 2).
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As Bernard Darwin (a member at Woking) explained, the architectural strategy on Woking’s 4th hole was to pinch the landing area for the drive:
This hole was originally a very ordinary “drive and pitch” hole. You drove straight down a fairly broad strip of turf between heather on the left and the railway line on the right.
Then you jumped over a rampart [turf dyke] on to a nice big green, and there you were.
The soul of Mr. Stuart Paton, however, soared far above so lamentably unimaginative a hole, and he set to work upon it.
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First, he removed large portions of the cross-rampart so that it became possible to play a running pitch shot from certain positions, and then in the very centre of the fairway, at just the range of a good drive from the tee, he dug a small but formidable bunker.
In shape, it bore resemblance to the Principal’s Nose, while in position, it was rather like that of the bunker which lies in the middle of the course going to the ninth hole also at St. Andrews.
By means of this bunker, a clear-cut and distinct problem has to be faced on the tee.
Figure 304 Card number 7 of 36 in the Imperial Tobacco Company cigarette card set called “3 Jovial Golfers in Search for the Perfect Course,” by Bernard Darwin [Ipswich, England: W.A. and A.C. Churchman, 1934]).
We must decide whether to drive safely away to the left, and so have a pitch to play, which is sometimes rather difficult, or whether to take a risk and lay down the ball between the bunker and the railway line.
The danger of pushing the ball out a little too much and so going out of bounds is considerable, but the reward is considerable also, for an easy running up shot should give us a putt for three.
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(Bernard Darwin, The Golf Courses of the British Isles [London: Duckworth, 1910], pp. 19-20)
Darwin mentions only Stuart Paton, but his collaborator was celebrated amateur golfer John Low, who promoted his ideas about golf course design in newspaper and magazine articles in the early 1900s.
At the beginning of 1901, the year in which he began his work with Paton to redesign Tom Dunn’s 1893 layout at Woking, Low explained his bunkering philosophy in Golf Illustrated:
Figure 305 J.L. Low. Golf Illustrated, vol 4 no 50 (25 May 1900), p. 159.
I would advocate more bunkers, far more bunkers, not two or three, but thirty or forty more, on nearly every course I know.
The player should, in my view, have to steer his [way] through the hazards of the course, having to play each shot with fear and trembling.
He should, moreover, have to go near the hazards – so closely should they girt his path.
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At present, the crack just hits with a light heart over the dangers of the course, and his ball is never nearer a [fairway-wide cross] bunker than when, forty feet in the air, it soars gaily onward….
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Something has to be risked and, moreover, from a philosophical point of view, the risk is self-imposed: the position of the match, the chances of success, and, perhaps, the nature of the opponent’s previous shot have all to be taken into account.
The game has risen from the merely physical and mechanical and has become as well philosophical and strategical.
(Golf Illustrated [London], cited in Birmingham Gazette, 14 March 1901, p. 8)
One can see why Low’s architectural philosophy would be nicknamed “thinking golf,” but we can see here that Low himself named it “strategical.”
Concerning decisions to be made before the tee shot on the 17th hole at St. Andrews, Park had written similarly about the “self-imposed risk” consequent upon strategic calculations undertaken by the thinking golfer:
At the Autumn Meeting of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in September of 1893, Mr. F.G. Tait had early in the day returned a score of eighty …. Mr. Mure Ferguson, playing after him, knew at the sixteenth hole that he must complete the remaining two holes in nine to win ….
Those familiar with the course at St. Andrews are aware that the direct line to the seventeenth hole from the tee is over the corner of an enclosure called “the station master’s garden,” but it requires a long shot to carry the hazard.
If successfully carried, however, it gives an easier and shorter road to the hole, making it an almost certain five.
The alternative line of play is wide of the enclosure; but this makes the hole more difficult.
Mr. Mure Ferguson risked the carry and was successful in doing the hole in five and the next in four, thus winning the medal.
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These examples will show what golfers must occasionally do.
The necessity for such play can only arise when the exact state of the scores of the other competitors is known …. In the majority of cases, he will have to play to the end in ignorance of the other scores ….
In playing for score, golfers should never risk doubtful hazards but rather play to the side or play short.
In this, as in other matters, judgement must be exercised. (The Game of Golf, p. 166)
Discernment of ways to play a hole, careful consideration of alternatives; judgement of risk: Park and Low both cherished design that required decision-making.
And Low was also of a mind with Park on the question of the fairness of bunkers.
For Park, only one kind of bunker was unfair – a bunker that was not visible to a golfer about to play a shot: “all hazards should be visible to the golfer when he stands at his ball before playing his stroke. A bunker that is not visible to the player is always more or less of a ‘trap’” (The Game of Golf, p. 203).
For Park, golfers must be able to see the danger confronting them in order first to think about it and then to make a decision about the stroke to play. And so, Park says that a bunker that can be seen cannot really be unfair:
If the bunker is visible to the player, and there is sufficient room to avoid it, it cannot properly be called a trap.
Golf as a game of skill requires that a player should be able to place his ball: and if he sees the hazard, and knows there is a danger of getting in, the proper thing for him to do is to drive his ball to one side or the other of the difficulty.
(The Game of Golf, p. 205)
A few years later, Low would defend centreline bunkering in precisely these terms:
There is really hardly any such thing as an unfair bunker.
Even the hazard right in the middle of the course at the end of a long tee shot, like the ninth hole bunker at St. Andrews, is really quite a fair risk.
That it is only a good shot which goes into it is often the complaint we hear. True, true, gentle grumbler, but not good enough.
If a player is going to drive as far as that pot, he must see to it that he drives to one side or the other; there is plenty of room on either flank.
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(J.L. Low, Concerning Golf [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903], p. 169
Both Low and Davis would have supported the person defending centreline bunkering in the debate about the 4th hole at Woking that Bernard Darwin says he often heard:
The number of discussions which I have heard on this little bunker would fill a large but not uninteresting volume. The form of the discussion is nearly always the same, and is something like this:
A. “You can’t persuade me that it is right to have a bunker bang on the line to the hole, exactly where a good drive should be.”
B. “If there is a bunker there, then that cannot be the line to the hole. Your drive was not a very good one but a very bad one.”
A. “It was not a bad one. It was a perfect shot – hit in the middle of the club.”
B. “You should use your head as well as the club head.”
After this, the conversation becomes unfit for publication.
(Bernard Darwin, The Golf Courses of the British Isles [London: Duckworth, 1910], p. 20)
Park’s 1896 discussion of the fairness of centreline bunkers was clearly a contribution to a discussion already underway well before he wrote The Game of Golf: he writes that the question of the placement of such bunkers had been “frequently considered” before he addressed it, and he writes that he “cannot altogether endorse” the opinion that already prevails among some golfers that centreline bunkers are illegitimate (The Game of Golf, p. 205).
But by his arch phrase – I “cannot altogether endorse” the idea that centreline bunkers are unfair – Park implies that he has not (yet) actually laid out such a bunker himself (otherwise he would simply have said that he disagreed with the idea that they are unfair).
Nonetheless, Park obviously knew well the bunkers on the Old Course that factored in debate about centreline bunkers – such as the bunkers Low mentions on the 9th hole of the Old Course and such as the three bunkers called the Principal’s Nose on the 16th hole, after which the bunkers on the 4th hole at Woking were said to be modelled.
In the context of this discussion of Park’s 1896 theorizing in The Game of Golf, on the one hand, and the celebrated early 1900’s bunkering practice by Low and Paton at Woking, on the other, Davis’s bunkering of his 1897 5th hole at Newport deserves careful attention.
See the map below.
Figure 306 Annotated detail from the 1915 course map of the Newport Country Club which shows the partially erased information about Davis’s original 1897 5th hole at Newport. Waterman, p. 166.
There seem to have been at least five fairway bunkers on this hole (“I would advocate more bunkers, far more bunkers,” said Low, “not two or three, but thirty or forty more, on nearly every course I know.”). Significantly, there was a group of three bunkers in the centre of the fairway – two of which were right along the centreline. We can now see that they were placed where they performed a similar function to the centreline bunkers on the 9th hole at St. Andrews and the three bunkers of the Principal’s Nose on the 16th hole at St. Andrews. And we can now see that Davis’s three bunkers shown above anticipate the two bunkers in the middle of the 4th hole at Woking, which A.C.M. Croome called “Stuart’s Neb” – a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of Stuart Paton (The Times [London], 2 March 1909, p. 19).
The carry for the drive over the furthest of the three grouped bunkers was approximately 180 yards – a big carry in 1897 that few (if any) of the top amateurs in the United States could have managed at that time (weeks before he won the U.S. Amateur Championship at Newport, C.B. Macdonald won the long-drive competition at the Niagara-on-the-Lake International Tournament with a drive of 179 yards). Mind you, depending on wind conditions and the firmness of the fairway, a good golfer was capable in 1897 of hitting a golf ball 425 yards in two shots, so the 5th hole was reachable with two big shots – a possibility that made it necessary for ambitious golfers to consider whether they should try to carry Davis’s bunkers or avoid them.
Should a golfer wish to avoid the three centreline bunkers by going to the right of them, a single bunker awaited about 220 yards from the tee (within reach of a good strong drive, that is), so the golfer faced a choice: play short of the latter bunker and treat the hole as a three-shotter, or aim a long drive to squeeze right of the three centreline bunkers and left of the small bunker at 220 yards.
Figure 307 Annotated detail from the 1915 course map. Waterman, p. 166.
Low would approve of bunkering like this: “Bunkers, if they be good bunkers and bunkers of strong character, refuse to be disregarded and insist on inserting themselves; they do not mind being avoided, but they decline to be ignored” (Concerning Golf, p. 173). He would particularly approve of bunker on the right side of the fairway about 220 yards from the tee which caught a shot played a bit too far right by a golfer trying to avoid the centreline grouping of bunkers:
What tests good golf is the hazard which may or may not be risked; the bunker which takes charge of the long but not quite truly hit ball.
If the “Principal’s nose” was translated to within a hundred yards of the tee, it would, no doubt, catch bad shots which do not now reach it, but it would no longer influence the character of the hole as far as first-class golf is concerned.
It is just because it is far out and capable of trapping the fairly long shot that it is a nose to be feared; a “neb” which would make the “wee McGregor” himself feel “shoogly.”
(Concerning Golf, pp. 168-69).
Low’s description of the strategic import of the three pot bunkers just off the centreline of the fairway of the “long hole” at St. Andrews (the 14th hole) applies perfectly to Davis’s grouping of three oblong bunkers on his 1897 5th hole at Newport:
On the way to the long hole at St. Andrews, there are three little pots almost on a straight line, the furthest being some 200 yards from the tee.
The nearest pot seldom catches a shot, but the middle one nips a slightly heeled shot very often, while the far bunker catches a really long ball which is just some ten yards from the bee-line to the hole….
They are, it is true, almost on the bee-line to the hole; but golf need not be played in bee-lines.
It is a mistake to suppose that because you hit a shot straight down the middle of the course and find it bunkered you are to fill up the offending hazard.
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Next time, you will play on the true line, not the bee-line, and all will be well.
(Concerning Golf, p. 170)
Davis never wrote a passage like the one above to explain his design of the 1897 5th hole at Newport, but golfers who played the hole should have had no doubt about what Davis intended.
On the other hand, the golfer playing left of the three centreline bunkers and left of the perpendicular oblong bunker at about 210 yards from the tee had to be aware of the ditch angling into the fairway along the left side (for a pulled tee shot might reach this ditch).
Playing safely left of these bunkers, however, seems to have constituted the longest route to the hole. And so, like the golfer aiming right, the golfer aiming left was probably committing to playing the hole as a three-shotter.
Figure 308 Annotated detail from 1915 course map. Waterman, p. 166.
In 1897, it seems that the only way to reach the 5th green with two shots was by means of a drive over and between bunkers – a route involving considerable risk in quest of a score of 4. Driving left or right of bunkers made the hole longer, but such a strategy made a score of 5 much more likely than a score of 4.
Given their similarity in look and function to the two bunkers at Woking called “Stuart’s Neb” and to the three bunkers at St. Andrews called the “Principal’s Nose,” perhaps Davis’s grouping of three oblong bunkers should be christened “The Newport Proboscis.”
Or, if we think of these centreline bunkers as emerging from a notional collaboration between Park and Davis (centreline bunkers having been justified in theory by Park and then having been designed in practice by Davis), perhaps we should call them “Our Two Willies’ Snout.”
Conclusion
According to Robert Crosby, Low was the first to recognize that great links courses exhibit timeless architectural principles – principles awaiting discovery, articulation, and application. With the writing and design practice of Low, he says, a “new golf architecture” began to emerge: It … discerned a logic in great links holes at a time when prevailing architectural views had assumed there was no such logic. It was no accident that almost everything that Low wrote about golf architecture pivoted around an analysis of specific features at the Old Course, Hoylake or other links courses. Those features … served as Low’s architectural touchstones. (Crosby, pp. 6-7) Claiming that in the late 1800s, “links courses were thought to be happy accidents of nature” and that “inland courses, by contrast, were the products of careful planning,” Crosby says that “a high wall was presumed to separate the two kinds of courses” (Crosby, p. 4). And the fact that links courses existed in a separate architectural universe “signified to Victorian designers that importing their virtues into man-made layouts was a non-starter” (Crosby, p. 4). But I would argue that Willie Davis, Tom Dunn, and Willie Park, Jr, all identified architectural principles in the links course they knew and all attempted to translate such principles to the inland courses they laid out in the 1890s. As I have suggested above, Davis seems to have applied at Shinnecock Hills the logic he discerned in the 18 holes at Hoylake – the only links course he knew. And unlike the origins of the Old Course at St. Andrews, the origin of the Hoylake course was so far from being lost in the mists of time as to have been an event contemporary with Davis’s introduction to the game. The nine-hole course was laid out in seven-year-old Davis’s actual backyard, and then, as caddie, he witnessed the redevelopment of the property into an 18-hole course in 1872 and finally, as apprentice, he may have participated in the remodelling of a good number of holes before his departure for Montreal in 1881. One way or another, it is likely that Jack Morris explained to his apprentices the goals being pursued in the changes made at Hoylake.
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Inevitably, as the only proper golf course that Davis knew, Hoylake became his architectural touchstone – his Shinnecock Hills layout of 1891 recreating several kinds of fairway-wide cross hazards that he had known at Hoylake. And Hoylake became a touchstone for Tom Dunn, too. As we know, he was so enamored of the cop bunkers he encountered at Hoylake that he deployed them on his inland layouts – in ever more eccentric forms – as his signature hazard. Their architectural recourse to fairway-wide cross bunkering as the main feature of their inland designs was not thoughtless, mechanical (monkey-see-monkey-do) imitation of what they found at Hoylake, but rather a considered application of a principle they had discovered. Consider Dunn’s explanation of his architectural achievement at Great Yarmouth in 1883: The course on the links on the North Denes was this week laid off by the professional golfer Tom Dunn, from the celebrated North Berwick links. He pronounces the course as amongst the best in England, full of the most interesting and exciting bunkers and hazards of all descriptions, giving scope for the good players and encouragement to the beginners, as there are usually two modes of approach to each hole. The bold and more ambitious player can try to drive his ball clean over bunkers and hazards of furze, while the less experienced or more timid and cautious player can choose the less risky and longer approach to the hole. (Eastern Evening News [Norfolk, England], 2 November 1883, p. 4) Is there an earlier profession of strategic design principles than this? How do we explain it? Did Dunn create ex nihilo the idea of plotting two lines to virtually every hole? It seems more likely that, like Low, Dunn noticed the strategic decision-making required by holes such as the 9th, 14th, 16th and 17th holes at St, Andrews (as well as on other such holes on historic links courses) and recognized an architectural principle that he could deploy himself: creating two lines of approach to a hole. Curiously, however, Dunn seems never to have applied this principle on the more than 100 inland courses he laid out in the south of England in the 1890s. For these courses, he preferred to apply, instead, another principle he discovered in his consideration of the best holes on the great links courses: the principle that with each stroke, a golfer should face a problem to be solved. This is the same principle that Low implicitly recognized when he declared in 1901 that he was in favour of “having to play each shot in fear and trembling” (Birmingham Gazette, 14 March 1901, p. 8). Of course, Low would disagree with Dunn about the means of causing fear and trembling. Because the problem to be solved by each shot on the best links holes tended to be associated with an obstacle – a bunker, whins, hillocks, a burn – and because failure to avoid such an obstacle tended to cost the golfer a stroke, Dunn and Davis independently decided to cause “fear and trembling” by confronting golfers with a fairway-wide cross bunker – the most usual version of this cross bunker being a cop bunker, turf dyke, or (for Davis in the early 1890s) a sod-walled stone fence with a sand trench in front of it. As we know, in the 1880s, for many golf clubs in Scotland (Troon, Montrose, and Prestwick, for instance), for the Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club in England, and for the Royal County Down Golf Club in Ireland (designed by Old Tom Morris himself), fairway-wide turf dykes and cop bunkers were introduced as proper links course hazards – all before Tom Dunn introduced them to inland golf course design in England 1890 and also before Willie Davis introduced them to inland golf course design in North America at Shinnecock Hills in 1891. Obviously, the turf dyke and cop bunker that became staples of inland golf course design throughout the 1890s had not been conjured out of thin air: they were found on links courses, and their archetype was found at Hoylake in 1869. And so, Davis and Dunn were so far from regarding the virtues of links courses as a non-starter for inland golf course design that they saw certain cross bunkers found at Hoylake as so architecturally virtuous that they became the sine qua non of their inland golf course designs. Of course, Willie Park, Jr, also regarded the great old links courses as the golf course designer’s proper guide: The laying out of a golf course is by no means a simple task. Great judgment and skill and a thorough acquaintance with the game are absolutely necessary to determine the best positions for the respective holes and teeing grounds and the situation of the hazards. It is a mistake to suppose that our older golf courses in their present state are the same as when first formed. The original formation of them is lost in past centuries; but we know that changes have frequently been made and they really have been the product of ages of experience and have, so to speak, been evolved in the course of time.
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At every one of our historic courses, changes have been made again and again as experience dictated – bunkers have been filled up and new ones formed, holes have been shortened and lengthened, until these links have assumed their present state…. When a new course is to be laid out, I would strongly advise the promoters to obtain the assistance of someone experienced in such matters…. It is not possible for anyone who has not had previous experience of the game and who has not seen other courses to attempt to lay out links. (Game of Golf, pp. 194-95) Forty years later, Darwin would write a similar passage about the mysterious origins of the old links courses: How those old holes attained the form in which we know them no-one can tell. Assuredly, it was not owing to the genius of some heaven-sent designer whose name has unjustly been lost. It was rather through good fortune and a gradual process of evolution. The holes changed their forms many times according as whins grew or were hacked away, according as the wind silted up sand or blew it away there, according as the instruments of the game changed so that men could hit further and essay short cuts and new roads. Yet they possessed some indestructible virtue so that however they changed superficially, golfers united in praising them …. To define … the cause of [this praise] was really to make a discovery, and to proclaim the discovery was to proclaim a new faith. It was Mr. John Low who first put this faith into memorable words. (Bernard Darwin, “Architectooralooral,” in Playing the Like [London: Chapman and Hall, 1934]) Whereas Park emphasizes that changes to golf holes were dictated by human experience, Darwin curiously obscures questions of human agency. According to Darwin, the holes did the work themselves: “the holes changed their forms many times.” They changed their form “according as the wind silted sand here or blew it away there.” And holes changed their form “according as whins grew or were hacked away.” Whins grow as they will, but the people who might hack them away – and any questions about why they might do so – are obscured by Darwin’s passive syntax. Similarly, holes changed their form “according as the instruments of the game changed.” Again, the people who changed the instruments of the game are obscured by the passive syntax.
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The grandson of Charles Darwin says that the old links courses emerged from “a gradual process of evolution,” and, like his grandfather, he scants the idea of intelligent design: golf holes survived by adaptation to the changing environment of whins, wind, and technology, and, in their survival, there was a portion of “good fortune” – that is, luck. Darwin writes as though he were a Platonist, implying that good golf holes exist in an ideal realm and that their physical embodiment is an imperfect copy of the ideal form: “they possessed some indestructible virtue, so that however they changed superficially, golfers united in praising them.” According to Darwin, great golf holes exist in an ideal realm of eternal, universal architectural archetypes. Archetypal architectural principles can be identified by reason. The job of golf architects is to identify the “indestructible virtue” represented by a great golf hole and copy it as best they can. Of course, concerning the origin of great golf holes, no one ever thought there was a “heaven sent designer whose name has been unjustly lost,” but there were certainly many generations of golfers and green committees and green keepers who made decisions about layouts – decisions that produced the great golf holes that came down to the late nineteenth century. And it was this collective practical wisdom that Park sought to recognize and to articulate. Park was an Aristotelian by temperament – an empiricist who sought knowledge of good golf course design by direct observation and study of a good golf hole as a physical artifact. Park certainly regarded the old links courses as the product of intelligent design: according to him, the “historic courses” were “the product of ages of experience.” The wind bloweth sand where it listeth, but Park emphasizes that people decided to fill up a bunker and dig a new one, decided to lengthen a hole, decided to shorten a hole, and so on. He saw the “historic courses” not as products of nature but as artifacts: they emerged as a material expression of golf culture. They literally embody an evolution of architectural wisdom: they express an acquired knowledge about the appropriate length for various kinds of golf holes; they express an acquired knowledge of where hazards should be located on various kinds of golf holes. When a “new course [is] to be laid out,” according to Park, the “great judgment and skill” necessary to “determine the best positions for the respective holes and teeing grounds and the situation of the hazards” depends on the architect’s having “seen other courses.” Implicitly, Park’s requirement that an architect have “seen other courses” means “seeing” in the sense of “understanding”: see?
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Park recognized that “historic courses” contain architectural knowledge to be distilled into principles by those who can “see” them. From his having “seen” certain historic courses, for instance, Park derived his principle that to prevent congestion at the first tee, “the first two or three holes should, if possible, be fairly long ones and should be, comparatively speaking, easy of play” (The Game of Golf, p. 198). He makes clear that he had not made up this principle himself, for he quotes a caddie who recognized that the Musselburgh links demonstrated this principle: “Holes of good length permit the players to get away without congesting the links, or, in the words of a Musselburgh caddie, it allows them to ‘get squandered’” (The Game of Golf, p. 198). Again, it seems to have been the historic courses he had seen that led Park to say, ““It may be taken as a general indication of the length and difficulty of a green of eighteen holes that par play over it – that is to say, good play without mistakes and allowing two strokes for holing-out in each case after the putting green is reached – should require about eighty strokes” (The Game of Golf, p. 197). Park did not pluck the par of “eighty strokes” out of thin air; rather, he considered the “historic courses” that he had “seen” and worked out the approximate average score for par play over them. And it was presumably his study of “historic courses” with par play of “about eighty strokes” that led to his conclusion about the proportion of short holes and long holes that there should be on a proper 18-hole course: On every eighteen-hole course, there should be at least two short holes within reach of a good player with one stroke …. And there should not be less than one long hole to be reached in, say, three full strokes. The other holes may be made of varying lengths – none of them under two strokes in length, some capable of being reached in two full shots, and others within reach of one full drive – or two full drives – and [then] iron and cleek shots of varying lengths. (The Game of Golf, p. 199) Park does not seem to have been advancing here merely a personal theory or predilection but rather a distillation of principles that he derived from his consideration of the evolutionary experience embodied in historic courses. Yet for all the practical architectural wisdom to be accessed by studying the knowledge embodied in historic links courses, comparison of play on links land courses and play on inland courses leads Park to conclude that the architect who has truly “seen” such golf courses cannot absolutely prescribe the proper lengths for golf holes: It is not possible to lay down ideal distances because so much depends upon the nature of the ground. For instance, on a flat or on a seaside links, where the ground is hard and the turf short, a ball can be driven much further than on a hilly or heavy course because it has considerable run after alighting and it is possible to get away a long second stroke owing to the ball lying clear [of grass because of the short turf] …. On a heavy in land course, where the grass is long, the drive is all carry without any run and owing to the interference of the grass, it is not possible to get away a long second stroke …. And on a hilly course, the nature of the ground may considerably diminish the distance of the drive …. Consequently, on courses of the nature first mentioned, the holes may be made longer than on the courses such as those last indicated. (The Game of Golf, pp. 200-01) Similarly, it seems to have been consideration of “historic courses” that led Park to his description of principles to be followed regarding locating and building putting greens: The variety of places on which they can be formed is infinite. They may be on the level course, or in a natural hollow or basin, provided it be sufficiently large and shallow, or they may be placed on the tops of large “tables.” All these are good positions and the more the variety that can be introduced, the better. The putting greens should be as large as possible, and while the ground should be comparatively level, it is not desirable that it should be perfectly flat like a billiard table but should rather be of a slightly undulating character. (The Game of Golf, p. 202) And with regard to the placement of hazards, of course, we have inferred that his knowledge of how centreline bunkers functioned as tests of skill on several holes at the Old Course led to his conclusion that such bunkers were legitimate hazards. On the basis of the review above of how Davis and Park – and Tom Dunn himself – developed their design philosophies in the 1880s and 1890s, one might suggest that like Low, they all attempted to distill architectural principles from the links courses they had “seen.” Furthermore, they often implicitly distilled principles cognate with those identified by Low.
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Low, however, recognized that the “fear and trembling” that architects wanted golfers to face should be prompted by more than a merely physical challenge. Successful negotiation of a fairway-wide cross bunker was simple for golfers skillful enough to get the ball into the air, and since the line to the hole was straight over each cross bunker, virtually no decision-making was required about line of play. Low’s criticism of such cross bunkers was withering: “It is a coarse kind of hazard that only demands of the player that he should send his ball over it anywhere up in the air in almost any direction” (Concerning Golf, p. 172). Low is rightly celebrated for promoting “thinking golf.” In the 1890s, neither Park, nor Davis, nor Dunn was nearly as advanced as Low would be in the early 1900s with regard to advocacy of architecture that required thoughtful decision making. But we know that they appreciated such architecture. Dunn had celebrated his achievements in this regard at Yarmouth in 1883. In 1896, Park explicitly endorsed the decision-making required on the tee of the 17th hole at St. Andrews and he implicitly endorsed the decision-making required on the tee of the 9th and 16th holes at St. Andrews. And late in 1896 and early in 1897, Davis created for his 5th hole at Newport a constellation of centreline bunkers that required a number of decisions on the tee and, decision made, the necessity thereafter of “holding to a straight course.” By 1896, Park and Davis had turned their attention to the architectural principle with which Dunn had experimented in 1883: asking golfers to choose between lines of approach to a hole.
Appendix 1: The Fate of Davis's 18-Hole Newport Course
Just as eminent American golf authority Van Tassel Sutphen had not understood Willie Park’s 1896 design at St. Andrews – observing that because of the conspicuous absence of traps and pot and cop bunkers, it was “hardly difficult enough for first-class all-round play” – so Robert Bage Kerr, president of the USGA in 1900, criticized Davis’s 18-hole Newport layout as too easy because of an equally conspicuous absence of hazards and bunkers. Focussing on the new nine holes added in 1897, Kerr spoke as follows at Newport in January of 1900:
Figure 309 R.B. Kerr, circa 1914.
The Newport Golf Club offers perhaps the most striking example of the prodigal way in which money has been spent to make a good golf course.
If all the money that has been sunk in these grounds could be mined, the whole Klondike region would be a poorhouse in comparison with it.
The club has expended a great amount of money during the last three years; in fact, money has been dumped into the plat of 100 or more acres where the first nine holes [of the 1897 course] are laid out with as much prodigality as if it had been dirt filling.
This tract is several feet below sea level … so that it will be seen how great a task has been undertaken and accomplished in making one of the finest links in the country if smoothness and beauty only be taken into consideration.
It must be admitted that the course is not “sporting” in the best sense of the word, for it is sadly deficient in hazards and bunkers and is, if anything, a trifle too easy.
Scores of 80 … are frequently made … and Willie Davis, the professional last season, has made the round of 18 holes in 72.
(Inter-Ocean [Chicago], 10 January 1900, p. 8)
Alas, Davis’s full 18-hole Newport layout would not last long enough to be tested by a USGA championship. Indeed, the nine holes opened in 1897 were abandoned in the early 1900s, when the Newport Golf Club and the Newport Country Club began to experience serious difficulties.
On the one hand, interest in golf simply waned:
Golf of recent years has not been very popular in Newport.
Tennis, yachting, and other amusements have detracted from the number of players on the course of the Newport Golf Club.
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Last year [1901], the old nine-hole course was sufficient to accommodate all who wished to play.
The Greens Committee is now considering the advisability of opening this year only this course instead of the full eighteen-hole course. The longer course will be kept in readiness so that if the demand warrants, it can be put in commission at any time during the season.
(New York Times, 8 April 1902, p. 7)
On the other hand, with fewer golfers, the Newport Golf Club could no longer afford the $6,000 per year cost of its lease with the Newport Country Club for use of the golf course property. Extended negotiations eventually reduced the fee to $4,000 and the Golf Club continued.
The Newport Golf Club played on the nine-hole course until the end of the 1909 season, when $5,000 was spent to bring an additional nine holes into play for the 1910 season (New York Tribune, 6 September 1909, p. 3).
Figure 310 John Yule stands with arms folded to the left of his greenkeeping crew and in front of the man sitting on the horse-drawn mower. Undated photograph in Waterman, p. 112.
The upkeep of the golf course had been put in charge of John Yule in the spring of 1899, the season that would unexpectedly prove to be Willie Davis’s last at the Club.
Born in North Lieth in 1863 (today a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, but at that time a distinct area serving as the city’s port), Yule had learned his greenkeeping at St. Andrews under Old Tom Morris.
Hired at Newport in April of 1899, he came directly from St. Andrews, arriving in May. 4
Figure 311 John Yule (1863-1938), circa 1923.
Yule would serve as the club’s greenkeeper for the next 30 years, leaving only in the late 1920s to become greenkeeper for the Wanumetonomy Country Club, where he served until just a few years before his death in 1938.
Working closely with the Greens Committee, he oversaw changes to a number of Davis’s holes over the next two decades. On the original 1895 course, the 1st fairway would be moved to a point between the two fairways used in 1895, and the three cop bunkers on the 1st hole also seem to have been moved accordingly.
The par-3 3rd hole (Davis’s “Cop” hole) would be replaced with a long par-4 hole paralleling Harrison Avenue. This change necessitated a change in the direction of play to the original 4th green.
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All other holes on Davis’s 1895 course seem to have endured until A.W. Tillinghast’s redesign of the course in 1923.
On the original 1897 course, the Club eventually eliminated Davis’s first three holes, as well as his 5th hole, but kept largely intact his 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th holes, which endured right down to the time of Tillinghast’s work.
Figure 312 John Yule (right) and David Honeyman (1881 1947), son of St. Andrews greenkeeping assistant to Old Tom Morris, David Honeyman, Sr, and since 1916 regular supervising construction engineer for A.W. Tillinghast. At the Newport Country Club, circa 1923.
Tillinghast developed seven holes on new land purchased by the club – the same land on which Davis had laid out the 1893 course.
On the Club’s original land where Davis’s 18 hole course was laid out, Tillinghast developed 11 holes.
Today, Davis’s 1895 1st hole endures almost intact, and the routing of his 2nd hole is largely preserved, as is (for the most part) the routing of his 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th holes.
From his 1897 layout, the fairways of his 6th hole and his 7th hole remain but play on each is reversed. Today, one plays down Davis’s old 7th fairway to the exact location of his 6th green: the hole that was “Westward Ho” has effectively become “Eastward Ho.”
Similarly, one plays down Davis’s old 6th fairway to the approximate location of his 5th green.
Figure 313 Image from Google Maps, 2 September 2025.
All that remains of Davis’s 1897 par-3 4th hole called “The Pond” is … the pond! It lies now in the middle of a marsh, but it still requires a carry of about 60 yards.
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The low-lying eastern part of the property (where the polo field and the 1897 new nine were found) was never destined to stay dry.
Figure 314 H.H. Barker during the 1906 Irish Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush. Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 15 September 1906, p. 93.
Herbert H. Barker (1883-1924), a renowned British amateur golfer from Huddersfield, England, who turned professional a year after winning the 1906 Irish Amateur Championship to accept a position at the Garden City Golf Club, New Jersey, was called to Newport at some point to consult about the layout. Barker worked at Garden City from October of 1907 until 1910 but also began a career as a golf course architect, laying out a nine-hole course for the Columbia Golf Club in Washington D.C. in 1909. He also played regularly in the US Open, often finishing in the money, and four times finished within four strokes of the winning score.
After winning an open tournament in Atlanta at the end of 1910, Barker returned to Yorkshire where he married and lived in Rastrick, near Huddersfield. At the end of 1911, however, he was made an attractive offer by the new Roebuck Golf Club in Alabama to build its course designed by Nicol Thompson (older brother of Stanley Thompson). Barker was employed by the Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, in 1915.
Figure 315 H.H. Barker, Berkshire Eagle, 20 July 1907, p. 7.
From Richmond, Barker enlisted later in 1915 in the Royal Flying Corps where he served until the end of World War I. Because he had acquired great knowledge of wood in the early 1900s while running a company in Huddersfield in connection with his father’s position as “woodman” of the Fixby Estate near Huddersfield (Barker handed the company off to his father when he became a golf professional but retained his financial interest in the business), and because wood was an important material in the construction of airplanes, Barker was sent from England to the United States to take charge of acquiring the best wood for the construction of airplanes for the Allied forces.​​
Barker may have been the architect who eliminated the 1st, 2nd, and 5th holes of Davis’s 1897 layout and added the new holes that are drawn on the 1915 map of the course (two of these holes being laid out across the old polo field, which was not available for golf during Davis’s time at the Club). Such work may have occurred when the Club decided in 1909 to spend “5,000 to revive its 18-hole layout for the 1910 season (New York Tribune, 6 September 1909, p. 3).
But whatever Barker’s role at the Club, drainage remained a problem. In 1911, the Club considered excavating the polo field and connecting it to the ocean to create a basin for yachts. In 1916, the lowest parts of the course were under four feet of water after a succession of thunder storms struck Newport: the fire department came to pump the water away.
Figure 316 Peter W. Lees. Richmond Herald (England), 25 April 1914, p. 8.
At some point during World War I, Scottish greenkeeper, golfer, and architect Peter Whitecross Lees (1869 -1923) was called to the Newport Country Club – presumably to consult about the golf course drainage problems.
Lees had travelled from the Mid-Surrey Golf Club in England to the United States in June of 1914 to build the Lido golf course on Long Island for C.B. Macdonald and famously drained a troublesome swamp on that golf course site.
It is possible that Lees came to Newport as an associate of either Seth Raynor or A.W. Tillinghast, both of whom were advising the club about redesigning the golf course in 1922-23.
Figure 317 Front left: J.H. Taylor. Front right: Peter W. Lees. Meeting of the Professional Golfers Association. Golf Monthly, vol 2 no 11 (January 1913), p. 827.
Involved in greenkeeping since the mid 1880s, Lees had laid out courses (well before coming to America) in Scotland, England, Ireland, continental Europe, and Africa. He built courses for Old Tom Morris and Willie Park, Jr, in the 1890s. More famously, in the early 1900s, he worked with J.H. Taylor at the Mid-Surrey Golf Club to create artificial mounding on inland golf courses that was imitative of natural mounding on links courses (this architectural innovation by which ranges of humps and hollows and grass bunkers were strategically angled as “hazards” on inland golf courses was often called “Alpinization”).
Figure 318 A.W. Tillinghast in the field. Undated.
Having worked for C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, he had also worked on at least seven courses alongside Tillinghast, as at the Essex County Country Club in New Jersey and at the Somerset Country Club at Bernardsville, New Jersey.
Lees seems to have come to Newport sometime after 1916, for he was said to have first been tempted away from the New York area only in 1916, when Tillinghast asked him to help lay out the new course of the Hermitage Country Club in Richmond, Virginia:
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A surprise in the arrangement is that Mr. Tillinghast’s enthusiasm over the possibilities of the property has led him voluntarily to bring with him, as his associate, Peter Lee, recognized in the “old country” as the world’s greatest authority on soil conditions and turf….
The announcement has aroused considerable enthusiasm among the golfers as it means that the new Hermitage Club will have a Tillinghast-Lees course, heretofore an impossibility outside of Gotham.
(Richmond Times-Dispatch [Virginia], 13 August 1916, p. 21)
Perhaps Tillinghast would have invited Lees to work with him at Newport if Lees had not suddenly died of tuberculosis in the spring of 1923.
Neither Lees nor anyone else solved the drainage problem at Newport.
Evidently, Tillinghast did very well to design even three viable holes in this area.
Appendix 2: Davis Does Apawamis Next
In November of 1899, Davis left Newport for the Apawamis Golf Club, which was eager to have the 18-hole course that Tom Bendelow laid out between February and September of 1899 transformed into a longer layout worthy of hosting the championship tournament of the Metropolitan Golf Association.
Figure 319 The photograph above is one of the last taken of William F. Davis, presumably showing him at the Apawamis Golf Club at Rye, New York, just before his sudden death of pneumonia in January of 1902 at 40 years of age. Golf (New York), vol 10 no 2 (February 1902), p. 192.
The New York Times warmly congratulated Apawamis on its success in tempting Davis away from Newport:
One of the most interesting announcements in the line of professional changes comes from Newport in the statement that Willie Davis, who lately resigned from the Newport Golf Club, has accepted an offer from the Apawamis Golf Club of Rye to take charge of its links.
The Apawamis Club may be congratulated on securing so capable a professional, for among the host of Scotchmen who have come to America to help promote the game, Davis can be numbered in the top ranks.
With a thorough knowledge of all the technicalities of the links, as well as possessing [the] grand talent of reliability, Davis will always add a certain golfing tone to whatever club he may be acquainted with.
As a player, his ability has always been recognized, but he has not descended to that advertised method of backing himself for matches to redound to his own honor.
Davis has been connected with the Newport club almost from the day of its organization, and the present excellence of its eighteen-hole course is largely due to his efforts….
Davis will probably take charge of his new club within a few days.
(New York Times, 12 November 1899, p. 10).
Davis had acquired a reputation as a good architect and course builder. After his new nine holes opened at Newport, a Providence newspaper noted: “Mr. Davis is one of the foremost … layout men in the business in America” (Evening Telegram [Providence, Rhode Island], 9 November 1897, p. 10). Five months after Davis moved to Apawamis and began his alterations of the course, the New York Times averred: “The name of Davis on a golf course is indication that the links will be worthy of a good test of golf” (New York Times, 11 March 1900, p. 20).
It is not surprising, then, that in due course, Davis was celebrated as the worker of the wonder that the Apawamis golf course became:
The work of bringing the ground to its present delightful perfection is a monument to the energy and patience of its builders.
Anyone familiar with the abrupt contour of Westchester County, its swamps and woody ridges, its stone walls and pebbly ditches, will realize what it has been to transform the unclaimed waste of 1898 to the present upholstered stretches.
It was in June 1899 that the club first assumed the dignity of an eighteen-hole circuit.
“WILLIE” DAVIS’S WORK
“Willie” Davis, who had enjoyed remarkable success in laying out the Newport course, was secured at that time as resident professional, and today he is able to point with some pride to the changes wrought under his watchful eye.
When Vardon, the English ex-champion, visited the country a year ago, he made a tour of the grounds, and pronounced them the best he had seen.
That they contained sharper tests than even he was able to master is shown by the fact that 79 and 80 were the best records he could make.
In fact, no one has been able to cope with Davis himself in this respect, for the Apawamis professional enjoys the distinction of holding the record at 78.… [Davis lowered the course record to 76 a month after this newspaper item appeared.]
The course … was originally laid out by “Tom” Bendelow.
(New York Tribune, 15 September 1901, p. 16)
Although Bendelow had become an afterthought, much of his original design remained after Davis’s redesign work – especially in the routing.
Between 1899 and his shocking death from pneumonia in January of 1902 at just 40 years of age, Davis lengthened nine holes (1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18). He moved eight greens to new locations (1, 2, 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, 18), and he elevated the 17th green. He moved six tee boxes to new locations (3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17) – moves that changed both the length of a hole and the line of play on it. Fairways were widened on the 1st and 7th holes, and the 8th hole was laid out in a new direction.
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Van Tassel Sutphen, since 1898 the editor of Golf (New York), reviewed the course in October of 1900 – almost three years to the day after he had complained of the “conspicuous” absence of “traps and ‘pot’ and ‘cop’ bunkers” on Willie Park’s 1896 St. Andrews design, deficiencies which meant the course was “hardly difficult enough for first-class all-round play” (W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen, Harper’s Weekly, vol 41 no 2131 [23 October 1897], p. 1066). Sutphen was sure that no one could fail to see these problems: “the Green Committee will probably be obliged to put in some additional artificial hazards to punish a foozled second shot and to encourage the player whose strong point is in pitching onto the green with the iron” (W.G. Van Tassel Sutphen, Harper’s Weekly, vol 41 no 2131 [23 October 1897], p. 1066).
But play over Davis’s Apawamis design had him singing from a different hymn book:
It must be acknowledged that Apawamis possesses some claim to distinction in the world of golf.
And certainly no time nor trouble nor expense has been spared to make that claim good….
A distinguishing characteristic of Apawamis is the non-existence of the conventional cop-bunker….
(Golf, vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 242).
Sutphen also notes: “Pot and trap bunkers are sparingly employed as a protection for the greens” (Golf, vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 242).
At Apawamis, Davis deployed cross bunkers sparingly.
Most were natural. It was observed in the spring of 1901 that on the 15th hole, “a natural cop bunker guards the green” (Weekly Register, 24 March 1901, p. 8). And crossing a number of holes were streams with walled banks – writers called them walled ditches or water ditches – and these were located “scientifically” to challenge a drive, or to challenge a second shot, or to challenge an approach shot. Similarly, crossing perpendicularly over several fairways at “scientifically” appropriate distances were roads, which were treated as natural hazards (there was no relief from them and the club could not be grounded in them). And there was a stone wall to be crossed on the 8th hole.
Only occasionally were there artificial cross bunkers. There was a sandpit cross bunker on the 3rd hole, for instance, precisely where penal architecture required one to catch a topped drive:
“No 3, the Dipper, lies parallel with the second [hole] …. A bunker traps a topped ball from the tee” (Weekly Register, 24 Match 1901, p. 8).
And there seem to have been two such bunkers on the 18th hole, one for the drive and one for the approach: “The last hole, 323 yards, should be made in four. A bunker eighty yards from the tee must be driven …. A bunker guards the green, which one should reach in two” (Weekly Register, 24 March 1901, p. 8).
But as late as 1909, when a process of adding bunkers had begun, a newspaper nonetheless reported that regarding “cross bunkers … there are only a few” (Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 3 July 1909, p. 23).
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On the 1st hole, Sutphen notes, Davis removed a Bendelow cross bunker: on “No. 1, the walled ditch that used to unfairly trap a well-hit ball has been covered over” (Golf, vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 243).
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On such a hole, the golfer now drove from the tee with a sense of freedom.
Figure 320 Findlay Douglas drives from the 1st tee at the Apawamis Golf Club. Official Golf Guide of 1902, p. 268.
Sutphen celebrates the first shot on the 11th hole in these terms: “The view from the tee is a fine one, and particularly so to the golfer, for it is just a fine free drive off into space, without any dreadful chance of coming to irremediable grief” (p. 246). The possibility of “irremediable grief” was absent because the expected cross-bunker was absent.
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Although Davis routed fairways across streams and ditches to challenge golfers to carry the hazard with a drive or with an approach shot just as penal golf course designers had done with cop bunkers, he angled this hazard in an innovative way.
On the 12th hole, for instance, his use of the “walled ditch” proves historically interesting.
Figure 321 A view of the 12th hole at Apawamis. Golf (New York), (October 1900), p. 247.
As Sutphen notes, this fairway-wide hazard was not presented (as it usually was) perpendicular to the tee box: “the walled ditch … hazard confronting us … runs diagonally across the course” (p. 246).
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Such an arrangement of this hazard allowed golfers to approach it strategically.
According to Sutphen, “In the straight line, it requires a carry of about 110 yards to find safety and a good lie” (Sutphen, p. 246).
Another reviewer saw the drive differently: “The line of play is diagonally across the water ditch, and a carry of 130 yards from the tee is necessary” (Weekly Register, 24 March 1901, p. 8). As can be seen in the photograph above, whether one saw the required carry as 110 yards or 130 yards depended on one’s decision as to whether to take the shortest carry over the hazard or a longer one – the line for the shorter carry apparently leading to the long approach shot shown above.
Davis achieved a similar strategic effect when he abandoned the original Bendelow green on the 2nd hole and rebuilt it on the top of the hill where it still resides today. The new design now required the golfer to make a strategic choice: be satisfied with a safe route to the green that generally required three shots or try to reach the green in two shots by taking a route that involved risk.
The diagram below from the Brooklyn Eagle illustrates the situation (note that this diagram dates from 1911 – nine years after Davis’s death – but the hole remained essentially unchanged from 1901 to 1911).
Figure 322 Diagram of Apawamis 2nd hole 1911. Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 29 July 1911, p. 17.
Davis placed two sand bunkers along the left side of the fairway.
The right side of the hole was significantly “HILLY” and the sides of the hills had rough grass.
In 1911, the Brooklyn Eagle golf writer who produced this diagram recommended that golfers keep the drive left of the hilly ground along the right side of the fairway.
We can see, however, that aiming the drive to the left side of the fairway brought bunkers into play – especially the second bunker.
Note that whatever line a golfer took from the tee box for the drive, the approach to the green remained difficult: “SLOPE TO GREEN ALMOST PERPENDICULAR.”
A description of this hole dating from the spring of 1901 reveals dangers confronting the drive whether left or right: “Hanging lies are not uncommon [on the right], and sand traps are so arranged as to punish careless play [left]. The green is well guarded by rough ground, and five is bogey and good golfing” (Weekly Register, 24 March 1901, p. 8).
Sutphen’s 1900 review of this hole makes clear the strategic decision that Davis required golfers to make before they hit their first shots:
Another good long hole, with the green perched high up on the opposing hill….
The distance is but a trifle over the par figures for two full shots, but in practice it is virtually impossible to reach the hole in less than 3, unless we play far over to the right and happen to secure a good lie.
(Sutphen, pp. 243-44)​
Figure 323 A golfer plays the Apawamis 2nd hole in 1900. The putting green is on the top of the hill, where two or three golfers seem to be putting on it. The golfer in the foreground seems to be standing in the rough on the left side of the hole, perhaps just beyond the first bunker, and perhaps 20 or 30 yards short of the second bunker, which might be detectable in the distance as the depression appearing between his shoulders and the top of his cap. (Golf [New York], vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 245.
Park suggested in The Game of Golf that putting greens should be large and undulating and we can see from his work at Apawamis that Davis agreed, for Sutphen observes: “When he finally arrives at the green, [the golfer] can do his putting on an undulating green of generous size” (Golf, vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 243).
In his preference for undulating greens, Davis went against the grain of local expectations in the 1890s and early 1900s, for many American golfers regarded the flat and level billiard-table green as the sine qua non of a proper golf course. As the New York Times observed in 1896:
If there is one place on the golf course which needs to be as level as a billiard table, it is the putting green.
Some of our golf clubs have spent hundreds of dollars in perfecting the greens alone.
An almost imperceptible rise of the ground will be detected at once by the golfers. Even a blade of grass unnecessarily high is an aggravation, and such a thing as a dry leaf is picked up at once and thrown out on the course.
​
(New York Times, 21 April 1896, p. 3)
Looking back in 1909 at this earlier attitude, Walter J. Travis railed against greens “artificially levelled as flat as a floor,” calling the early American desire for them a “determined effort to get away as far as possible from the true, natural type of seaside links which have stood for generations as the highest and best examples of golf course architecture” (American Golfer, vol no 5 [March 1909], p. 235).
At Apawamis, Davis also followed Park in his development of side hazards by which to encourage golfers to keep to the proper course. In addition to sand bunkers such as those seen on the diagram of the 2nd hole shown above, Davis also deployed long grass and stone walls along the sides of his fairways.
We can see from some of the hole-by-hole accounts of matches played in the May 1901 MGA championship tournament that long grass was omnipresent on the first nine holes.
​
On the extra playing of the 1st hole required to settle the semi-final match between C.H. Seeley and Walter J. Travis, we find that “Seeley sliced his brassey into long grass on a hillside” (Buffalo Courier, 26 May 1901, p. 29).​
Figure 324 Charles Seely. The Golfer, vol 15 no 3 (July 1902), p. 195.
In the championship match between Seeley and 1898 U.S. Amateur Champion Findlay S. Douglas, the latter got into the longer grass on his tee shot [on the 3rd hole]” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1901, p. 10). In a report about an earlier match involving Douglas, we read that “The ex-champion pulled his fourth [hole] drive into the long grass and … he failed to get out with an iron” (Boston Evening Transcript, 24 May 1901, p. 6, emphasis added). In his match against Seeley, on the par-3 5th hole, “Douglas drove into the long grass to the right of the hole” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1901, p. 10).
With his drive on the 6th hole, “Douglas … hooked into the long grass …. [and then with his second shot on the 6th hole,] Seeley sliced … into the long grass” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1901, p. 10). On the 7th hole, “Douglas gave a poor exhibition, driving his ball into long grass and then getting only 20 feet on his effort to get out” (New York Times, 26 May 1901, p. 6). An anonymous review of the course in September of 1901 mentioned long grass featuring as a punishment on the 9th hole: a “brook and rough grass on either side stand as a menace to the luckless player who slices or pulls” (New York Tribune, 15 September 1901, p. 16).
Long grass was a punishing feature along the sides of at least seven of the first nine holes, and it also seems to have been ubiquitous on the second nine.
Although the fact was not mentioned in the account of the MGA matches in the spring of 1901, we know from Sutphen’s review of the course in October of 1900 that the 10th green (“perched on the side of a hill”) was “surrounded on three sides by long grass and rough ground” (Sutphen, p. 246). The anonymous New York Tribune review of the course in September of 1901 reported that the 11th hole “is full of difficulty,” for “at the top of a rough hill is the tee, and on either side rough grass” (New York Tribune, 15 September 1901, p. 16). In the 1901 MGA championship match, on the 14th hole, “Douglas played a crashing brassey from the long grass” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1901, p. 10). On the 17th hole, “Douglas pulled his drive on his second [shot] and on the third [shot] he landed in the long grass” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1901, p. 10). Similarly, in a semifinal match against Walter J. Travis, Seeley “pulled his drive into long grass” on the 17th hole (Boston Evening Transcript, 24 May 1901, p 4).
And so, long grass is mentioned as a punishing feature of the course set-up on at least eleven holes. And there will no doubt have been long grass on other holes not mentioned in the newspaper items cited above.
Sutphen refers to stone fences generally found on the farmland surrounding Rye – “the course is situated upon typical Westchester country, with its abrupt changes of contour, its stone walls and ditches” – but he notes just one stone fence hazard: on the 4th hole, where there was “a bad corner between stone walls on the left” (Sutphen, p. 244).
But we can see from other contemporary references to play on the course that stone fences lined many fairways and presented a danger to golfers playing the ball off the fairway right or left. For instance, a fairway-lining stone wall figured in the semifinal match between Travis and Seeley at the MGA Championship in May of 1901: “Facing the ninth, Seeley sliced his drive under the stone wall and lost” the hole (New York Tribune, 25 May 1901, p. 4). This “stone wall [ran] the length of the hole on the right” as late as the 1911 U.S. Amateur Championship held at the club (Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 14 August 1911, p. 17). And the 10th hole also had a stone wall along the right side of the fairway (Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 15 August 1911, p. 6).
At an Apawamis invitational tournament in 1910, one of the MGA’s top amateurs “had the pleasure of seeing his ball, after being topped from the fourteenth tee, ricochet from the surface of the pond over a four-foot stone wall into the long grass beyond” (New York Times, 24 June 1910, p. 10). And in 1911, there was still a stone wall running the full length of the right side of the 17th hole (Brooklyn Eagle [New York], 23 August 1911, p. 6).
We can see that at Apawamis, Davis continued to develop and apply architectural principles evident in his 1896-97 design at Newport. On most holes at Apawamis, Davis required golfers to hold to a straight course. Sand bunkers, long grass, rough ground, and stone walls along the sides of fairways made keeping the line imperative. And then there was the question of the line: on certain holes, Davis required golfers to choose between a longer but safer route to the hole and one that was shorter but riskier.
Sadly, Davis died just when he was emerging as an interestingly innovative architect. He had made a convert of Sutphen, who regarded the Apawamis design as exemplary golf course architecture: “the punishment is made to fit the crime with unfailing regularity” (Golf, vol 7 no 4 [October 1900], p. 242).
One wonders what Davis might have achieved as an architect if he had been granted another twenty or thirty years.
Appendix 3: Yachting and Sailing
I find interesting the fact that Park’s nautical phrase in The Game of Golf – “it is not easy to keep to the proper course” – is echoed in The Golfer’s nautical phrase describing Davis’s new layout at Newport: “trouble can easily be avoided by holding to a straight course.” If the editor of The Golfer here passes along words that Willie Davis himself used to explain his layout as they toured the new holes together as they were under construction in the spring of 1897, then the coincidence of this nautical phrasing may hint that Park and Davis indeed discussed together their developing architectural ideas at Newport in July of 1895 – inspired to use nautical analogies because of the excitement surrounding them because of the first sea trials off Newport of the “Defender,” the new yacht (owned by Charles Oliver Islin, Edward Dennison Morgan, and W.K. Vanderbilt) that was expected to represent the United States in the America’s Cup contest that fall. One of the first requirements of sailing is learning “to hold a straight course”: a ship thereby follows a direct, unwavering line towards its destination, avoiding turns and deviations. And when boats are passing or crossing each other’s path, depending on the relative positions and speeds of each, they are expected to “keep to the proper course.” In yacht racing in particular, to “keep to the proper course” is to sail in the directions necessary to complete the race and clear the marks as directly as possible. And when boats are on the same tack and within two lengths of each other, one boat is limited to sailing no higher than its proper course toward the mark: it cannot push the other boat aside but must rather “keep to the proper course.” Although Park descended from golfers and farm labourers, there was sailing experience in his family. As Park’s great-nephew Mungo Park observes: Willie’s great grandfather, John, was a farm labourer as far as we know, … but both of his uncles were seamen and good golfers. Willie’s first job was with his uncle Mungo (the winner of the Open in 1874). Mungo had been at sea for twenty years by then and taught Willie at Alnmouth and Ryton. It would not be surprising if Mungo used nautical terms in describing golf course design, and these might have been picked up by Willie in his formative years at Alnmouth and incorporated into his vocabulary of golf.
​
Another uncle, Archibald, had also been a sailor, ball-maker and a good golfer. He also had a key role in Willie’s development, as it was suggested by Archibald’s family that he lent Willie the money to start his business in 1884. (Mungo Park, email to the author, 25 November 2024) If Willie’s uncles did indeed use nautical terms in discussing golf with their nephew, one wonders whether they made explicit to him that they saw golfers who play the wind as like sailors who ply the wind: that is, whether they might have observed how golfers and sailors must each understand the effect of the wind on the direction in which they wish to proceed, and how each must therefore adopt appropriate strategies for cooperating with or countering the wind. Davis, however, had no known connection to sailing. His parents were involved in hostelry, as we know, and his grandparents and great-grandparents were all farmers. And so, just why he might have told the editor of The Golf that the best way to play his 1897 5th hole at Newport was “by holding to a straight course” is not clear. Of course, the Newport buzz about yacht racing in mid-July of 1895 is not necessary to explain the later use of nautical phrasing by Park and Davis. As noted above, versions of their phrases had been used by writers to describe golf since at least the 1870s, and in doing so, many golf writers were implicitly aware of analogies between golfing and sailing regarding questions of how to “navigate” the wind. And the nautical phrases employed by the two men in relation to golf have long been common everyday figures of speech. On the one hand, in order to live right or achieve one’s goals, one might be advised to “hold to a straight course.” One is thereby exhorted to live by the right principles, maintain one’s integrity, pursue goals without being distracted, and maintain consistency and stability in what one chooses and does. On the other hand, to “keep to the proper course,” similarly, refers to ways and means of realizing purposes and achieving goals. It is the direction you are supposed to go to accomplish your goal or the route that makes most sense for your purpose. It is the best way to achieve something and implies strict focus on the desired outcome. Nonetheless, I entertain here two interesting possibilities: one, that Park was stimulated to invoke a nautical phrase in The Game of Golf by his experiences at Newport in July of 1895; two, that he and Davis both used such nautical phrasing in their conversations together at that time to explain ideas about how to plot lines of play to the hole that would encourage golfers to choose between alternatives and encourage golfers to learn how to play the ball accurately along the chosen line.
Figure 325 Defender, 20 July 1895.
During the week that Park was in Newport, the attention of Country Club members was divided between the impending golf match and contemporaneous yachting events:
Golf and yachting came in for a certain share of enthusiasm.
The presence of the Defender in the harbor was one of the principal items of interest to nearly everyone in the town, and the points of the new racer formed the chief subject discussed in the clubs, hotels, and drawing-rooms.
(New York Tribune, 14 July 1895, p. 7)
Park had arrived in Newport at the beginning of a mania that enveloped virtually everyone in Newport for several weeks. A Philadelphia reporter was left agog at the beginning of August by the preoccupation with yacht racing:
Newport is nothing if not a seaport town at present.
The talk is all of boats and boating, uniforms and yachting suits are the only wear, and bets are offered and taken on the crack sloops that would astonish a bookmaker on Coney Island.
It would be difficult to make a stranger let loose in Newport’s smart set just now [Willie Park, say?] believe that all its interests are not absolutely nautical, and that the same men who now have the sea fever so strong upon them are nearly all daring cross country riders, expert polo players, enthusiasts for golf ….
(Philadelphia Record [Pennsylvania], 5 August 1895, p. 7)
In mid-July, Park and Davis could not have avoided the universal topic of conversation. I wonder whether they welcomed this topic as an opportunity for making analogies by which to discuss their ideas about laying out golf holes.
On the one hand, the buzz in Newport may well have reawakened whatever interest in sailing Park had absorbed from his uncles. On the other hand, Davis had an interestingly particular and personal connection to the Defender – a connection probably guaranteeing that he happily became involved in the unavoidable conversations at the Club about the Defender’s prospects – for one of the most important of the new yacht’s passengers during the mid-July days when it was in Newport was Davis’s friend, Herbert C. Leeds.
In the ubiquitous Newport conversations about Defender, Davis was able drop an important name at will.
Figure 326 Herbert C. Leeds (1855-1930), circa 1896.
Independently wealthy, Harvard educated, world traveller, first-class yachtsman, Leeds had first met Davis more than a year before when they played together at the Country Club of Brookline as partners against Willie Campbell and Laurence Curtis on 18 May 1894, the day before Davis’s big exhibition match against Campbell.
At the end of the summer of 1894, Leeds came to Newport for the first national Amateur Championship conducted in the United States: alas, however, “Herbert C. Leeds, the old Harvard baseball player, whom many expected to win, was badly out of form” (Sun [New York], 12 September 1894, p. 5).
Leeds finished sixth, but his disappointing performance was not for lack of preparation, for he had come to Newport early to prepare for the championship by means of practice with Davis:
Mr. Herbert C. Leeds, previous to his fairly good appearance in the Championship, played a match with the Newport professional, Davis, the latter giving him a stroke a hole.
[Although Davis would perform poorly in his match against Willie Campbell and Willie Dunn at the end of the month,] On this occasion, Davis played in fine form, but the Boston amateur won by the narrow margin of one hole.
(Golf [London, England], 12 October 1894, p. 75)
In the spring of 1894, Leeds won the first club championship held at the Country Club of Brookline and he would soon become a renowned golf course architect, especially after expanding the Willie Campbell nine-hole layout of the Myopia Country Club to 18 holes and thereby establishing it as one of the best championship courses in the country by means of his widely admired architectural strategies.
​
At Newport on July 14th, Defender informally tested its race-worthiness against 1893 America’s Cup champion Vigilant. The boats were preparing to challenge each other in August for the right to represent the United States in the 1895 America’s Cup match. They were scheduled to race against each other informally on July 20th and July 22nd, so this trial on July 14th was an even less formal event, involving sailing in various directions, deploying various sails, but following no fixed course. Nonetheless, “many steam and sailing yachts were out to see the trial, and the scene was a reminder of regular race days” (Boston Globe, 15 July 1895, p. 1). The boats were visible from the Newport Country Club from about 11:00 a.m. until the conclusion of the trials at about 6:00 p.m. (Canton Independent-Sentinel [Canton, Pennsylvania], 16 July 1895, p. 2).
From the golf course, Davis was no doubt able to watch as much of this spectacle as he cared to. If Park had arrived in town on July 14th, he would not have been able to escape the excitement attending the yachting events of the day.
The next day, July 15th, Defender was “out … for a short spin” off Newport from 9:00 am to noon and then sailed inland past the golf course up to Bristol “for a few finishing touches and a coat of paint” (Boston Globe, 15 July 1895, p. 4). Park is likely to have been at the golf course by this point, for he was expected to play Davis the next day and it had been his habit during his visit to the United States to play the golf course before his big money matches against Dunn and the other American professionals he played.
The Defender was towed back to Newport from Bristol overnight from July 16th to 17th.
Leeds, one of “the yachting chums” of one of the yacht’s owners, had been on the Defender since its first trial by sail at the beginning of July (Boston Globe, 7 July 1895, p. 1). An expert yachtsman, he was consulted by the captain himself on July 6th as to whether the weather conditions were appropriate for the first raising of its sails (Kansas City Star [Missouri], 7 July 1895, p. 3). Leeds took charge of the yacht Colonia to make figures for Defender’s first trials. On July 13th, he “telegraphed to Newport for a tug to tow Defender there,” and so, he arrived in Newport on Defender on Sunday, July 14th, and was on board for the trials that day against Vigilant.
We can see that the newspapers regularly reported on what Leeds was doing in preparing Defender for the America’s Cup showdown. Reporters even watched him eat breakfast:
​
There was a look of supreme content and satisfaction greater than could be expressed in mere words apparent on the faces of E.D. Morgan, Herbert Leeds and Woodbury Kane as they sat reading papers and smoking their after-breakfast cigars this morning on the deck of the Colonia as she lay off Goat Island, barely a hundred feet away from Defender.
The fact that the papers they were reading so intently told the full story of the thorough trouncing administered by their pet, only a stone’s throw away, to the ex-cup defender, Vigilant, had doubtlessly much to do with the looks of contentment.
(Times-Democrat [New Orlean, Louisiana], 16 July 1895, p. 9)
Leeds sailed with Defender to Bristol on July 16th, but after Defender was towed overnight from Bristol to Newport, Leeds came ashore at Newport at 8:00 a.m. on July 17th and left on Defender that afternoon at 5:15 pm. Passengers began boarding for its departure around 4:00 pm.
Golf-mad Leeds was probably among the hundreds of spectators who watched the match between Davis and Park on July 17th. He would not have had time to watch their second 18-hole round, but there was time for him to follow the morning session and there was also time, were he so inclined, to spend time with Davis and Park during their two-hour break for lunch before the second 18- hole round was begun at 4:00 pm.
All-in-all, in mid-July of 1895, the simultaneous convergence upon Newport of Willie Davis, Willie Park, their mutual employer the Webbs who were in Newport on July 16th, and Davis’s friend – aspiring architect Herbert Leeds – makes quite plausible not just the hypothesis that Davis and Park had many opportunities and incitements to engage in substantial discussions of golf course design in general and substantial discussions of golf course designs at Shelburne Farms and Newport in particular, but also the hypothesis that they yielded to visual and conversational stimuli to deploy sailing analogies in their discussion of how to lay out a better inland golf course.
Appendix 4: Tom Dunn's Due
As a golf course architect, poor Tom Dunn tends to be maligned these days as a neanderthal.
When mentioned in discussions of the origins of modern golf course architecture, he is said to represent the dark ages of Victorian penal golf course design before the enlightenment brought by Low, Fowler, Colt, Mackenzie, Simpson, et al – developers of strategic golf course design.
Yet, as we know, Dunn celebrated strategic golf course design as early as 1883:
The course on the links on the North Denes was this week laid off by the professional golfer Tom Dunn, from the celebrated North Berwick links.
He pronounces the course as amongst the best in England, full of the most interesting and exciting bunkers and hazards of all descriptions, giving scope for the good players and encouragement to the beginners, as there are usually two modes of approach to each hole.
The bold and more ambitious player can try to drive his ball clean over bunkers and hazards of furze, while the less experienced or more timid and cautious player can choose the less risky and longer approach to the hole.
(Eastern Evening News [Norwich, England], 2 November 1883, p. 4)
Dunn anticipates by 25 years Walter J. Travis’s articulation of the same insight:
My idea of bunkering a course would be to make it easy for the short player … easy with regard to limitations of distance, but usually at the expense or sacrifice of a stroke on the majority of the holes.
Leave him a fairly open avenue provided his shots keep the line mapped out for him, but the route so laid out for him would not necessarily be in a direct line to the hole.
The comparative freedom from trouble would have to be paid for by the negotiation of accurately placed shots along a narrow line of greater aggregate length than that offered the good player.
(Walter J. Travis, “The Constituents of a Good Golf Course,” American Golfer, vol 1 no 7 [May 1909], p. 377)
The revolutionary gentlemen golf course architects of the early twentieth century would make the design principles explained by workman Tom Dunn in 1883 a staple of their own approaches to course design – and they would do so completely unaware that they had been anticipated by the ostensibly benighted fellow whose outdated golf courses they were so often called upon to modernize.
​
Dunn was seen as the archetype of the “hit-and-run” type of archetype criticized by Harry S. Colt, who humorously describes the laying out of a course by a designer who comes for the first time to land acquired by a golf club, immediately sets out with club directors onto the land, and gallops across the property – spontaneously marking proposed tees and greens with his routing stakes, and declaring his work done after a few hours:
[He] was introduced for the first time to 150 acres of good golfing ground, and we all gathered round to see the golf course created instantly.
It was something like following a water-diviner with his twig of hazel.
Without a moment’s hesitation he fixed on the first tee, and then, going away at full speed, he brought us up abruptly in a deep hollow, and a stake was set up to show the exact position of the first hole.
Ground was selected for the second tee, and then we all started off again, and arrived in a panting state at a deeper hollow than the first, where another stake was set up to show the spot for the second hole.
Then away again at full speed for the third hole, and so on.
Towards the end we had to tack backwards and forwards half a dozen times to get in the required holes.
The thing was done in a few hours, lunch was eaten, and [his] train caught, but the course, thank heavens, was never constructed!
(The Book of the Links: A Symposium on Golf, ed. Martin H.F. Sutton [London: W.H. Smith & Son, 1912], p. 70).
Colt says that “it is quite certain that no one can do good work … unless he has plenty of opportunity to consider the subject quietly. If anyone attempts this sort of work on a bleak November day, accompanied by a garrulous committee …, the result will be feeble” (Colt, The Book of the Links, p. 69). He offers these admonitions in 1912 as prelude to a description of what he does:
My own method is first to view the land and walk over it once or twice, and inspect it very carefully, but not to lay out a single hole; then to make a second visit, having considered the scheme in the meantime, and on that occasion to settle, if possible, the framework, and take two or three days to do so, leaving the bunkering in great part for a subsequent visit.
(Colt, The Book of the Links, pp. 69-70).
In other words, “Do as I do, not as Dunn did.”
Once again, however, Dunn was more than he was later made out to have been.
​
Like the progressive professional architects of the early twentieth century, Dunn often presented clients with careful and considered written proposals assessing, among other things, the nature of a property’s soil and turf. Such was the case in the spring of 1893 when he was asked to lay out a course for the Royal Worlington and Newmarket Golf Club:
Mr. William Gardner, of the Rosery, Exning, …. is an old and enthusiastic golfer, who learned the game many years ago on the other side of the border; the course is laid out entirely on a part of his property in Worlington Parish.
Before April of this year [1893], such a thing was not dreamt of, but Mr. Gardner used to have one or two holes for his own and his friends’ amusement and practice. It struck him that it might be further developed, and he sent for the well-known expert, Tom Dunn, of Tooting Bec, who has laid out greens in many parts of the world.
Dunn made an excellent report on the ground, which he considered highly suitable for an inland course, the soil being principally sandy and the grass of high quality.
His report ends thus: “On the whole, I have no hesitation in saying that when the work of putting the course in order is completed, most enjoyable links will be the result.”
(Golf [London], 3 November 1893, p. 114)
Note also that five years before Willie Park, Jr, famously set out to perform the miracle at Sunningdale of entirely transforming heathland waste into a magnificent golf course by removing all existing growth, reshaping the land, and planting grass seed anew, Dunn had already accomplished this feat.
In December of 1893, Dunn was called by the Parks and Pleasure Grounds Committee of the Bournemouth Town Council to inspect 100 acres of Meyrick Park “with reference to their suitability for the purposes of golf links” (Western Gazette, 22 December 1893, p. 6). Dunn duly planned an 18-hole course and his “services were retained until the completion of the links” (Golf, 21 September 1894, p. 22). He was then hired as the resident golf professional (serving in this role for the next five years before his health began to fail and he went to Florida for a brief period).
Golf (London) editor Robertson, who knew Dunn well and admired his work, wrote about his work at Bournemouth, probably having received from Dunn himself a first-hand account of how he had brought forth a “first-rate links” from a “howling wilderness”:
It may be interesting to golfers to know the magnitude of the work which has been taken in hand.
​
The heath, as it presented itself in its natural state, was a mass of whins and heather, knee-deep in many places, and the possibility of growing grass upon it appeared to many to be a remote contingency. But as a well-known member of the Corporation [of the Town of Bournemouth] humorously observed, even if the ground required to be planed and French polished, the Corporation was determined to carry pout the scheme.
The estimated cost was £1,500, but the actual cost exceeded this sum by £200, this excess being due to a maturer determination to make absolutely the most of the ground.
A start was made by ploughing up the whole of the level surface with a scarifier drawn by a team of six horses, the whins being burnt, and the ground raked, harrowed, sown with 200 bushels of grass seed, rolled, and top-dressed with 16 tons of chemical manure.
Whilst this part of the work was in execution, the putting greens and tees were being proceeded with. It was necessary to make and turf every one of these greens, and nearly 400 loads of stable manure were used as a subsoil for this purpose.
The difficulty of obtaining turf was not inconsiderable – Parkstone and neighbourhood (a distance of about four miles) being the nearest place from which suitable quality could be produced.
The turf had then to be taken up an incline of about one hundred and fifty feet, three chain horses being required for each load.
Sixty-two thousand yards of turf were required, and it is a matter of satisfaction that all this has taken root and now wears a bright and green appearance.
At the same time, a large number of fir trees in the line of play were uprooted and transplanted elsewhere on the ground, whilst eighteen bunkers were made, some of these being fashioned on the model of Scottish mountains.
A gang of ninety-five men was employed on this work, which was completed in the stipulated time of three months.
The Corporation laid down water-pipes all over the course … and every putting green and tee has branches directly taken therefrom, thus ensuring that the greens shall always be in good order independently of the vagaries of the weather….
A tribute is due to the enterprise of the corporation of Bournemouth in thus carrying to a successful issue what to many appeared a hopeless undertaking, and it is the barest justice to say that the ground, which six months ago was in truth a howling wilderness, has been converted into first-rate links.
(Golf, 21 September 1894, p. 22)
The Bournemouth Guardian seconded Robertson’s glowing commendation of Dunn’s miracle at Meyrick Park:
Mr. Tom Dunn has been barely a year in Bournemouth and has transformed the rugged Turbary Common [which was part of Meyrick Park], bristling with a virgin growth of underwood and tangled bushes, into a golfing ground of which both he and the town may well be proud.
Figure 327 Officially opening the golf course at Bournemouth on 29 November 1894, J.H. Taylor (winner of that year’s Open Championship) plays his tee shot on the 11th hole as Tom Dunn watches immediately to his right. Taylor must carry the “miniature mountain range” cop bunker that can be seen crossing the fairway (it is seen in the middle ground of the photograph between the chest of the caddie on the left and the middle of Taylor’s back). Taylor won a singles match that day against Horace G. Hutchinson and a singles match against Tom Dunn. Golf [London], 1 March 1895, p. 425.
Nature and art combined to help in the process, and Mr. Dunn’s native common sense and shrewdness have adapted both to the requirements of the situation.
(Bournemouth Guardian, 1 December 1894, p. 3)
There was probably an element of class prejudice in the disdain for Dunn that found voice from the late nineteenth century onwards, for most of the people who created the new profession of “golf course architect” were gentlemen (lawyers, doctors, bankers), and as such, they knew the proper position of a golf professional: it was not in the members’ clubhouse, but in the professional’s shop.
When Robertson introduced Golf (London) readers to Tom Dunn in 1891, he revealed something of this prejudice in his observation that Dunn should perhaps be excepted from it:
In addition to being a player and teacher of a very high standard, Dunn possesses literary proclivities which frequently find exercise in our columns.
He has a happy knack of writing tuneful, humorous Scottish verse referring to golf and golfers, and which hits off with kindly, gentle satire, some of the pronounced phases of golfing human nature as unfolded to the critical eye of the skilled player and teacher.
​
His upbringing and education have certainly been very far ahead of those of the ordinary club maker or professional ….
(Golf [London], 8 May 1891, p. 130)
When this item about Dunn appeared in May of 1891, Robertson observed that his “literary proclivities” had been exercised in Golf’s columns “frequently,” but I have found just one poem signed by Dunn published in Golf [London] during the period in question.
See below.
Figure 328 Tom Dunn, "Song," in Golf [London], 6 February 1891, p. 332.
It may be that other of Dunn’s poems were printed in Golf (London) anonymously.
To give poor Tom Dunn his due: he was more than the sum of the parts criticized by his gentleman successors who were the first to call themselves architects.