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Adam Lawrence

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Colt as architect, 1914
« on: January 08, 2017, 11:18:33 AM »

I found the image below while doing some research earlier, and thought GCAers might enjoy it, the earliest image I have seen of a golf architect at work. Note, as well as the T-square, the surveyors' chains by his left foot. The playing cards and crib board seem a little more out of place... presumably the implication is that HSC has swiped a card table from the clubhouse for his own use?


Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +1/-1
Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2017, 12:22:27 PM »
:)  that's a good one, no more staged than a lot of the pictures of "working" architects we see in the media today

Adam Lawrence

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2017, 12:23:29 PM »
I did think that he just needed to be staring into the distance and pointing to complete the image...
Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +1/-1
Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2017, 12:28:21 PM »
I did think that he just needed to be staring into the distance and pointing to complete the image...


When they did the video about Old Macdonald years ago, I asked my friend who was producing it how he was going to depict any "action" when most of my work involves standing on site and thinking about what to do!  Which makes me realize, in all the time I've spent with writers and camera crews, never once has anyone asked me to just verbalize all the things I'm thinking when I am looking at a half-finished hole and trying to sort out what needs to be done!  I think I will have my son shoot something like that for me.  I just need a new hole to build somewhere ...

Thomas Dai

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2017, 12:38:41 PM »
Rodin's statue entitled "The Thinker" comes to mind (pun intended)! :)
Atb

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +1/-1
Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2017, 01:04:27 PM »
Rodin's statue entitled "The Thinker" comes to mind (pun intended)! :)
Atb


I get asked to pose like that [chin on hand, not the full posture] quite often.  I hate posing for pictures!

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2017, 01:36:35 PM »


Crap. Old enough to have used all those things....probably says something about the pace of change accelerating or something.....


When I first started in 1977, it was required to use chains to measure things out, the thought being that new fangled cloth would stretch up to maybe, I don't know....a 1/16th of an inch, which COULD throw off the entire design. LOL.


The pointy thing in his had could be either a compass for drawing circles, or calipers for transferring distances from one point of the map to the other.


Of course, I learned to draw with T Squares. Coincidentally, I just moved one into to my new attic while straightening up today.  Saved it all these years for some reason. Sometimes helps cut paper at right angles.



What they don't show there is the Plane Table, a table a bit smaller than shown there, with a transit attached on top.  Thus, you could set up on your control point, set the transit to whatever angle you needed to aim at a staking point, and it would automatically give you the angle, without measuring.  The University of Illinois had one and we trained on it, but I never used on in practice.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2017, 01:45:22 PM by Jeff_Brauer »
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +1/-1
Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2017, 02:57:15 PM »

When I first started in 1977, it was required to use chains to measure things out, the thought being that new fangled cloth would stretch up to maybe, I don't know....a 1/16th of an inch, which COULD throw off the entire design. LOL.



I remember trying to drag a cloth tape around the Old Head of Kinsale to measure things, and having it snap in two from the wind, more than once.  We had to tie knots in it, so I guess that was a two-knot wind!


But my favorite was when P.B. Dye insisted we measure the 3rd hole at Long Cove on the line of play, which we couldn't do without someone swimming the lagoon along the line of the second shot.  Luckily for me, our local boy from the mountains, Dan-O, was the one who was assigned to swim.  My assignment was to stay up at the end of the lagoon and keep throwing dirt clods at the alligator to keep him occupied with something other than Dan-O !

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2017, 03:17:54 PM »

TD,


Great stories.  I was lucky to never work down south.  And yes, even the wind was enough to make cloth bend and be greatly inaccurate.  Should have remembered that.


After a while, we used transits instead of levels, because those could measure distances pretty well, at least up to about 700 feet when the image got fuzzy.  Would need better glass now that dog legs are 900 feet.


We even spent time figuring out if you could measure distance if the transit wasn't level.  Turns out, even if you were shooting uphill or downhill, the variance wasn't more than a few feet.  I guess I didn't care that much.  Have told the story about how my dad brought me architecture books, and one noted a lawsuit against the architect because the measurements came out a 1/4" short (made for a cold room in winter) Another case was about a building falling down.


After starting golf and falling in love with it, I was going to be a golf architect, but was also a bit relieved to think I wouldn't have to measure things quite that closely in golf design.  (A few things, you do)  And, I figured golf courses couldn't fall down, so that was comforting.  I did learn they can sink  slowly, though!
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Anthony Gholz

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2017, 03:47:42 PM »
Adam:  Can you divulge source for the cartoon?  Thanks, Anthony

Anthony Gholz

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Re: Colt as architect, 1914
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2017, 04:09:59 PM »
Adam: 


This is the best Colt photo I can come up with.  Definitely posed with accessories.  Unfortunately, although it is Colt and Alison, the photo is a faked combination of the two in the C&A Dining Room at Sea Island Georgia.  Very few photos of them together.  And this isn't one of them!


Anthony



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