Over a year ago, I was contacted by Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson, Ohio about providing a master plan for their golf course along with about nine other golf architects. According to members, the club's documentation, and the Cornish & Whitten books, the course was designed by Herbert Strong. I met with a few of their people and walked the golf course, excited to have an opportunity to work on a Strong golf course.
I saw numerous features throughout the golf course that told me otherwise, particularly many green complexes that clearly appeared to be built in the sixties or later. I saw a few bunkers (particularly behind both 11 and 12 greens) that seemed like they were more utilitarian than golden age. I also saw the first green complex that definitely looked to be golden age. The mounding was more human - scale, random, and connected with a single base surrounding three sides of the green rather than individual mounds one sees as features of the 60's (or later) and that were apparent on many other holes.
The sixties-like features were easily explainable as likely subsequent renovations by others. The golden-age features were a bit more challenging to decipher as there is very little known about Herbert Strong. As I prepared my written proposal, I came across of picture of one of the greens at Lake Forest in Geoff Shackelford's The Golden Age of Golf Design, where he credits Herbert Strong. Still not having all my facts, I was careful not to refer to Strong too much in my proposal, settling on "golden-age" characteristics instead.
Fast forward a year and upon being asked to give a formal presentation to the committee, I resumed my research on Lake Forest and Herbert Strong's involvement, of which I came up empty. But I did find an interesting little nugget referring to Lake Forest's opening match between Walter Hagen, Denny Shute, Horton Smith, and Tommy Armour in the September 18, 1930 Hudson Times:
“Tom Bendelow, of Chicago, designer of the course, was on hand to see the Haig, Horton, and Denny tee off.”
GOLF ACES CLASH045 9-18-30 Bendelow I then found another in the September 12, 1929 Hudson Times:
“The American Park Builders of Chicago are supervising the building of the golf course, the new lake, and the residential park. The golf course was laid out by Tom Bendelow, golf architect.”
1000 ACRES023 9-12-29 Bendelow From there, I searched some other sources and found this from the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 7, 1930:
“Tom Bendelow of Chicago, the architect who built the course, will be on hand Sept. 17 to watch with interest the maneuvers of the three great professionals on the holes he designed.”
Plain Dealer September 7, 1930 Bendelow Article OnlyTo me, that was pretty heady evidence that Bendelow was the designer of Lake Forest. Particularly strong evidence (no pun intended) laid in the fact that the papers referred to him being on-site at the opening as opposed to just referring to him as the designer. One could dismiss the notation as designer as an error by the papers, but documenting him on site is much stronger.
At this point I stepped up efforts to confirm (or now, possibly deny) Strong's involvement and found nothing. I related the bombshell to the committee during my interview, knowing it could work against me. Luckily it did not and now it is a full-on assault to find out how they ever thought they were a Strong course. So far, a month later, they have found nothing. Ron Whitten is searching his records (I am guessing he probably just called the club back in 1980 or so and they said it was a Strong course), and Shackelford has not returned any of my six or so calls on the subject.
The club is now convinced of their Tom Bendelow heritage, changing the name of their dining room, and any restoration we undertake will certainly reflect Tom Bendelow, not Herbert Strong. So add one to the Bendelow column and take one away from the Strong column.