Thanks for all of that additional information on Mayfield, Sven. The holidays and getting back to work have not been helpful to my progress here but hoping to add to your materials here shortly.
Just so folks understand...in no way am I suggesting that Travis was "on the take" financially for Barker's projects. What I am suggesting is that it was almost unheard of at this time for an "amateur" to be involved in the design of other far-flung clubs and things like travel, lodging, etc. could be viewed as becoming the dreaded "professional" and at various times in his career his detractors levied that charge. I would add that almost inevitably, all of those early design efforts would be accompanied by a "professional", from Tom Bendelow, to John Duncan Dunn, to Tom Anderson, to Stewart Gardner, and then most prominently, to Herbert Barker after his arrival in the states.
From my IMO piece; (Sorry for the formatting flotsam and jetsam one gets on a copy and paste on this forum)
It should be noted that the “Walter J. Travis Society” does not believe that there is sufficient contemporaneous evidence of Travis’ design involvement to list Salibury Links as one of his courses at this time. While not entirely conclusive in terms of origin, it seems this speculation may be somewhat moot and misses a larger point. What is undisputable is that at the opening of the new course both Travis and Emmet were in close agreement as to what constituted a soundly designed golf course and those guiding principles of eliminating cross bunkers and instead fashioning “scientific bunkering” to tempt the better player, creating multiple avenues of play to accommodate all classes of golfers, and providing varied and undulating greens were the same ones being advocated by Travis since his 1901 Great Britain visit.
This is not to conclude that Emmet wasn’t similarly inspired by what he observed during his frequent travels abroad. However, it seems from the historical record that Travis was the first to take the lessons of the great historical links abroad, and the words and writings of learned men like John Low and interpret and codify them for an American audience in his writings and then sought practical applications for the realization of those principles on golf courses in the states. He also preached these innovative ideas to his friends and contemporaries at every opportunity.
It is interesting to note that at no time during this period did Travis either mention or promote his design efforts at those courses were he clearly did architectural work between 1897 and 1907, as documented herein. This omission was despite the fact that he wrote extensively for several publications during this period and authored a number of golf-related books. The only exception were those changes he was advocating for at his home club of Garden City, which would have been understandable and acceptable in his role as Captain of the club and Chairman of the Green Committee.
Although this may seem unusual today, when one considers that the USGA rules of “Amateur Standing” were so broadly construed at the time, it’s easy to see how perhaps a comped stay at the Equinox Hotel in Vermont, or rail transportation provided to the Pocono Mountains gratis, or just the loose nature of some of the financial arrangements of these large undertakings could bring one under suspicion and charges of, sin of sins, professionalism! It is also a fact that almost every golf course in America at this time was either laid out by a foreign professional or, a rudimentary affair by club members themselves to bat some balls around a field. Laying out a golf course was largely viewed as a working man’s endeavor, after all, and whether Travis felt he needed professional “cover” to maintain his unsullied amateur status at this time through collaboration with professionals like John Duncan Dunn, Stewart Gardner, Thomas Bendelow, or Tom Anderson is certainly a very real possibility.
Travis was attempting to walk a very fine line as an amateur with his unprecedented attempts to transform American golf course architecture at a time when nearly all “design” work was done by foreign “professionals” who were believed to have an innate talent for the work by virtue of their birthplace and prior exposure to the game abroad. This break from accepted tradition and even class structure was noted in the June, 1906 Brooklyn Daily Eagle” article below. (Author’s note – the article neglects the prior amateur work of men like Macdonald at Chicago, Emmet at Garden City, and Leeds at Myopia but each of those men came from an unassailable patrician background and Travis by this time had already been charged in the press with prior offenses.)
One One also needs to consider that Walter Travis at this time was the greatest amateur golfer in the world and his competitive goals required him to stay an amateur. Not that there weren’t professional tournaments, but those were viewed with much less prestige and even dignity. By now Walter Travis was working for a brokerage firm in New York City, a gentleman about town, and his standing in golf needed to reflect that.
The question of amateur/professional as related to golf course architecture wasn’t fully settled until 1916, when it was determined that it was only the acceptance of money specifically for laying out a golf course, and not just the perimeter associated activities that deemed one a professional. By that time in his life, Walter Travis had given up on his competitive career, and had quit the business world, and became a professional golf course architect for the remainder of his life, along with his related golf and golf publication activities.
But the fact remains that by the end of 1906, Walter Travis had now been involved in the architectural design and planning of more golf courses and more progressively strategic golf courses than any man in America. He had studied the great courses abroad and had come back a convert and a zealot, and a preacher. His revolutionary ideas about eliminating what he saw as the evils of banal, rote golf course design and the elevation of architectural principles consistent with the great courses abroad had now gained broad acceptance from the American golf community (see April 1907 Buffalo Courier article below) and he would soon have a publication of his own to trumpet his strongly held opinions on these and other golf-related matters.