Jock Hutchison giving actress Constance Talmadge an indoor golf lesson in 1922.
Jock Hutchison and Jim Barnes were the reigning British and U.S. Open champions when they booked a 12 date exhibition tour of the Pacific Coast, from December 1921, to January 1922. Their first stop in Southern California was the Ambassador Hotel golf course in Los Angeles, which later became the Rancho Golf Club, which is on the same land that is now the municipal Rancho Park golf course and Cheviot Hills Park.
Constance Talmadge was one of the three Talmadge sisters to succeed in Hollywood. Their father, of course, was an alcoholic, and abandoned them, and their mother went to work doing laundry!
Jim Barnes and Jock Hutchison in 1921.
St Andrews born, Jock was the first naturalized American to win the “British” Open, which he did in 1921.
English-American “Long” Jim Barnes was the 1921 U.S Open champion, and a West coaster who worked at Claremont G.C. (Oakland, CA.), Spokane G.C., and Tacoma G.C. He hit a 350 yard drive at Del Monte in 1911, and his consistent 300 yard length “off the tee,” gave him his nickname.
Constance loved comedy, not slapstick. She said she couldn’t be compared to her sister, as she couldn’t weep over a plastic doll. She loved golf, but preferred to watch the experts play, or caddying for them, and could often be found following the many exhibition matches held in Los Angeles in the 1920’s.
Note – I have included Wikipedia links to the people in this article, however, I often disagree with much of the history these pages present – jibj
Filling in the barranca at the “the island green” sixteenth, in early 1919 on Del Monte No. 2. (P.B.)
“The new course, which has just been opened for play at Pebble Beach, to be known as the Del Monte Second Championship Course, has as complete a watering system as was ever devised. It is already in working order, and with like comparison the other features of the course are having their development in the most scientific and intelligent manner.”
“The watering system on this course is capable of distributing two million gallons per week, which, with the annual rainfall, aggregates seventy inches a year on the watered area. These facts illustrate that California is prepared to take care of all the golfers in the country and give them excellent courses under ideal conditions.” – from The Golfer’s Happy Hunting Grounds by Jack Neville. Pacific Golf and Motor, March, 1918.
In January 1916, the Hotel Del Monte announced they were planning to build a much needed second golf course at Moss Beach, as professional golfers Walter Fovargue, Wilfrid Reid and James Donaldson arrived to remodel the Del Monte No. 1 golf course for the Western Golf Association’s Western Amateur and Open championships, to be held in July.
With California Golf Association secretary, Del Monte Country Club green chairman, and Del Monte Golf manager, Jack Neville, out of town at the Western Golf Association meeting in Chicago (where he offered a free train ride to entrants), the trio made a plan for laying out a new course at Pebble Beach, as an alternative to Moss Beach. All three were designing the new Lakeside course in San Francisco, and Fovargue would shortly design new courses for the Santa Barbara Country Club, the Annandale Golf Club, and Victoria Club in Riverside.
By early February, the Hotel Del Monte announced they were switching the location of their second course from Moss Beach to Pebble Beach, where the Forest Lodge would be transformed into a golf club house. Two weeks later, Wilfrid Reid joined Jimmy Donaldson, who was already on the ground, and together they began construction of the Pebble Beach golf links.
More than a year later, in March 1917, the Hotel Del Monte announced the new Del Monte No. 2 golf course at Pebble Beach was designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant of the Del Monte Country Club green committee, who had chosen the best solutions from six different plans to create the new layout, which would cost $100,000, and would open by September 1917.
The first score card that I have found is from March 1, 1917. The back nine should add up to 36, with the course a Par 73. Here is a clip of it from the San Francisco Chronicle:
In an amazing coincidence, or spurred on by Neville’s offer of a free train ride from Chicago for entrants in the Western Amateur, the United States Golf Association revised their rules in April 1916, regarding the “Magna Charta” of the Amateur Golfer, specifically stating that golfers could not accept travel or living expenses for playing in a tournament, contest, or exhibition, and would be deemed professional, if they make money “writing, editing or publishing articles, magazines or books on golf, or to laying out, constructing, supervising or giving advice concerning the layout, construction or upkeep of a golf course or any part thereof.” The W.G.A. followed suit in April 1917, also making golf course architects professionals.
Giving credit for the new course to Neville and Grant as amateur architects, even after the U.S.G.A. changed its rules and started the fight that would end the W.G.A., was unfortunate for the other early contributors: James Donaldson, Wilfrid Reid, Walter Fovargue, George Smith, Del Monte manager Carl S. Stanley, and California golf legends Roger Lapham and Ed Tufts of the California Golf Association, who all played a big hand in the creation of golf at Pebble Beach.
The new Annandale Golf Club course and club house at San Rafael Heights was formerly opened on April 10, 1907. The 18-hole golf course was 5,417 yards long, and ran north from the new club house following the routing of the existing Campbell-Johnston golf course before crossing Eagle Rock Road (Colorado Blvd) and heading further up into the foot hills.
A drawing of the Annandale course layout, circa 1907
“The opening was most auspicious and the finest club house and the finest golf course on the Pacific coast were liberally praised by the hundreds who attended the opening.” (L.A. Herald –April 11, 1907)
The new Annandale Golf Club was three years in the making and the third attempt by hotel and real estate men to take over the Campbell-Johnston’s historic San Rafael Ranch golf course, the first golf course in California and possibly one of the first in the United States. The oil and sand-green links was laid out before 1890, and was counted as one of Pasadena’s five pre-1900 courses, even though the ranch was in Los Angeles at that time. When the new club chose to be supplied with electricity and gas from Pasadena, rather than from the L. A. Gas & Electric Co., the course was set for its future annexation to Pasadena.
By 1906, the Pasadena Country Club course at Oak Knoll and Pasadena’s Hotel Green links were being lost to residential development. A new golf course was badly needed for the throngs of millionaire tourists visiting Pasadena.
The Hotel Green, Pasadena, circa 1895
A new organization, the Pasadena Golf Club Association, was a land company formed in 1906 by Hotel Green manager J.H. Holmes and owner G.G. Green, Colin M. Stewart and Colonel Wentworth of the Hotel Maryland, D.M. Linnard of the California Hotel Co., Conway S. Campbell-Johnston (land owner), the C.L. Hunter golfing family of Chicago, Pasadena real estate men E.H. Strafford & James Campbell, and R.H. Hay Chapman and E.B. Tufts of the Los Angeles Country Club.
The Annandale Golf Club house, circa 1907
$100,000 was raised to buy 127 acres from the Campbell-Johnston’s to build a club house and expand the old course to 18-holes. Once completed it would be leased to the new Annandale Golf Club, which was made up of the same directors and officers as the Pasadena Golf Club Association, but with Colin Stewart the club president, and James Campbell the secretary and head of the promoting company.
The association hired Hotel Green Golf Club professional Al Naylor, George O’Neil of Pasadena Country Club and Arthur Rigby of Los Angeles Country Club to lay out the links. Charles Orr and E.H. Strafford led the of the Annandale Golf Club green committee.
Jack Neville teeing off from the first hole at Pebble Beach in March 1918
“Undoubtedly the golfer on his first visit to Pebble Beach has a delightful surprise in store, for he will find an all-grass links, tees, fairways, and greens.“ (R.H. Hay Chapman, April, 1918)
The story of the Hotel Del Monte No. 2 golf course at Pebble Beach has been smudged into propaganda, which is not likely to change, especially in 2019, with the onslaught of publicity for Pebble Beach’s “100th anniversary,” and the holding of the U.S.G.A.’s Open Golf Championship in celebration thereof.
The Hotel Del Monte circa 1900
The truth is, the Hotel Del Monte was the grandest resort in California history, and the center of California golf competition since the Del Monte Cup in 1899. The Pacific Coast Golf Association was founded at Del Monte in 1901, and the California Golf Association in 1911, by which time the all-grass Del Monte No. 1 golf course had become overly congested with golfers.
1925-26 map showing the sand dunes at Moss Beach.
After taking advice from numerous golf experts, who were unanimous in their opinion, plans were announced on December 26, 1915, by Hotel Del Monte manager Carl Stanley for building a Scottish golf links on the sand dunes at Moss Beach early in the New Year. New manager Stanley was an ardent golfer known for developing the Hotel Virginia and the Virginia Country Club at Long Beach. His son Ashton Stanley was California’s first Junior golf champion in 1919.
Carl Stanley, the golfer, and S.F.B. Morse, the poloist.
As fate would have it, over New Years 1915-16, Del Monte property company manager, and ardent polo player, Sam Morse arrived to look over development plans for his Del Monte Unit. Strangely, Morse soon sent a telegram to the Universal Film Company at Universal City, Los Angeles, offering 20,000 acres of the Monterey peninsula to Hollywood as a movie set. This, thankfully, never happened!
After consulting with Carl Stanley and Del Monte golf manager Jack Neville, Morse shelved plans to spend $250,000 on the golf links at Moss Beach and decided that Pebble Beach was a much better and far more affordable location, as it already had a club house, the Hotel’s electric bus service, and Jack Neville’s real estate office, which needed a lot of help!
Aside from being the manager of Del Monte’s golf division and the Pebble Beach subdivision, Jack Neville was also the secretary of the California Golf Association, and publisher of their organ, Pacific Golf & Motor magazine, as well as a legendary multiple championship winning amateur golfer, and coincidently, chairman of the Del Monte Golf and Country Club green committee along with amateur champion Douglas Grant and club president, and California golf legend, Charles Maud.
Douglas Grant, Ashton Stanley, and Jack Neville in 1918 at Del Monte.
In January 1916, Stanley and Neville hired professional golfers James Donaldson (Scotland), Wilfrid Reid (England), and Walter Fovargue (U.S.A.), to remodel the Del Monte No. 1 golf course for the Western Amateur Championship in July. In February, Donaldson and Reid began laying out holes at Pebble Beach, and by March 1917, Neville and Grant had chosen the final layout from six different plans, and the new Del Monte No. 2 golf course at Pebble Beach was born.
Jack Neville at Del Monte in 1914.
Jack Neville was indeed the true “architect” of the Pebble Beach golf course, as he planned and superintended every detail of its construction, and by February 1918, the all-grass course had the best tees and fairways in the State of California. It had cost the company $100,000, with $22,000 spent on underground piping for the 450 outlet irrigation system, which in 1918 was “the most up to date and efficient water system in the United States.“(W.A. Buckner, Golfers Magazine 1921)
The Pebble Beach Forest Lodge was north of 17-mile drive (Cypress), facing Pebble Beach.
Unfortunately, on December 16, 1917, just eight weeks before the opening, fire destroyed the Pebble Beach Forest Lodge club house, which was a huge blow to the company. As soon as possible a new golf shop and lockers were constructed, and plans were drawn by Lewis Hobart (who also designed the old Lodge) for a new and much larger lodge, which wouldn’t open until 1919.
William Tucker
With the Pebble Beach golf course opening delayed until March 1918, Stanley and Neville had a chance to do more work on the greens, which had grown poorly over the wet winter. They hired America’s turf and grass expert, William Tucker, who rebuilt and re-seeded the troubled greens, but it was too late for them to be fully ready for opening day.
Pebble Beach hole #8 in 1918
Del Monte No. 2 at Pebble Beach (Pebble Beach Golf Links) opened for play on March, 30, 1918. The new golf course was 6,588 yards, par 74, from the championship tees, and 6,188 yards from the alternate tees. It is interesting to note that the original eighteenth hole was a 575 yard, par 5, which must have been altered by the construction of the new lodge, which was built on the south side of 17-mile drive (Cypress), across the road from the old lodge.
The opening card, with the back nine yardage added up incorrectly.
“Natural Hazards abound and the ocean hazards, while not difficult, will be real mental hazards for all the challengers of ‘Mr Par’. Whether the second rater or dub golfer will be able to get around the course in respectable figures without the loss of half a dozen balls is something that can only be answered when conditions are more normal.” (“Bobs” – San Francisco Chronicle, March 31, 1918)
The first golf tournament was a Four Ball “foursomes” match with teams of amateurs against professionals and was played on the following day (March 31).
In the feature match of the Four Ball, Jack Neville teamed with Fred Reilly and beat professionals Mike Brady & Tom McQuarrie, 4 and 3.
Neville and Reilly also had the low best ball score of 71.
Champion Mike Brady and Fred Reilly of Burlingame
On April 1st, 1918, the Hotel Del Monte held an Open tournament over thirty-six holes, medal play, for amateurs and professionals. Many amateurs chose not to lose any more golf balls and joined the gallery. Bets were laid that no player would beat 160 for two rounds from the championship tees. Instead they saw the hottest golfer in America, Mike Brady of Boston and Brentwood Country Club, Los Angeles, play like a machine and score 79-75, for 154, winning over runner-up and Pebble Beach professional Harold Sampson by thirteen strokes! Low amateur was a tie for third place between State amateur champions Jack Neville and Dr. Fredericks on 168. Other than Brady’s blistering golf, course knowledge was a big factor in the low scoring.
Other professional competitors included Tom Hughes, John Black, Tom McQuarrie, Harold Clark, Bob Clark, Peter Hay, George Turnbull (new Del Monte No. 1 pro), and amateurs Arthur Vincent and Fred Reilly.
“Few people as yet realize that one of America’s best golf courses has been built at Pebble Beach.” (R.H. Hay Chapman, August 1918)
Harold Sampson in 1919
Harold Sampson scored a course record 70, in July, 1918, the same month that alcohol was banned at the Hotel Del Monte, at Pebble Beach, and over the rest of the Monterey Peninsula until the War ended, which was another huge blow to the Del Monte company’s business. In September, Sampson left his shop to take over from Walter Fovargue in San Francisco. He didn’t return until 1919, when the new Del Monte Lodge was opened on Washington’s Birthday.
Jack Neville joined the United States army at Camp Lewis in September 1918, as World War I took over everyone’s lives
Charles Van Loan and Dr. Fredericks at Del Monte (Monterey), 1918
After an infamous round of golf on Del Monte No. 2 at Pebble Beach in April 1918, sports writer, humorist, and author, Charles E. Van Loan, said, “Never again, it is too dangerous a course.”
Van Loan found a very large garter snake next to his ball on the fifth hole, and then “encountered four prairie dogs, innumerable lizards, and three jackrabbits. Yes indeed it is a dangerous course.”
1918 rendering of Lewis P. Hobart’s design for the Del Monte Lodge at Pebble Beach
One Hundred years ago, on Washington’s Birthday 1919, the excitement was high for the long-awaited opening of the new Del Monte Lodge at Pebble Beach.
Lewis Hobart was the Hotel Del Monte’s architect. He also designed the original Pebble Beach Lodge in 1909. Hobart was well known in San Francisco, where he designed many important buildings after the Earthquake and Fire of 1906, including the original California Academy of Sciences buildings in Golden Gate Park, the Grace Episcopal Cathedral, the Bohemian Club, and estates at Burlingame for William Crocker and Richard Tobin.
The Hotel Del Monte Lodge at Pebble Beach – circa 1919
The new $200,000Lodge had 55 sleeping rooms, an a-la-carte grill room, special children’s kitchen, tea rooms, lounging areas, parlors, locker rooms, showers, and an open plunge (outdoor swimming pool) for golfers.
The remains of the original Pebble Beach Lodge,December 26, 1917.
The Hotel Del Monte was forced to build the new lodge after the old one was destroyed by fire, just two months before the new Del Monte No. 2 golf course at Pebble Beach was to open in February, 1918. The old log cabin lodge was the club house for the new golf course, which opened without one on March 30, 1918.
Golfer’s Oath – administered by Judge Flint on Washington’s Birthday, 1919.
The observance of Washington’s birthday began with the planting of a cherry tree near the first tee of the remodeled golf course by 11-year old Edward Simpson, of a prominent Tacoma family, followed by the swearing-in of the golfer’s by Judge Flint, “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Fifty Del Monte Golf and Country Club members turned out for thetwo day tournament. Douglas Grant won the low gross on day one, with 80, eight strokes over par, which was considered a good score after rain had made conditions slow, in addition to the local rules that were in effect due to the ongoing remodeling of the golf course.
On the second day the golfers played 18 holes of match play against par, and Douglas Grant won again, 2 down.
Jack Neville was conspicuous by his absence.
Douglas Grant driving from the 8th tee on Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1919
Bob Hope on Sunday July 3, 1949, teeing off first at the new Rancho Municipal Golf Course (photo L.A. Times).
Over 2500 fans turned out to see Bob Hope and Johnny Dawson lose their match to George Von Elm and Bruce McCormick at the opening of the city of Los Angeles’s new Rancho Municipal Golf Course on July 3, 1949.
According to the press, Hope was beaten, but not silenced!
Johnny Dawson and George Von Elm were advisors to William “Bill” Johnson and William P. “Billy” Bell in the design and construction of the new championship golf course, and the Nine hole Par 3 course. Both layouts were built on the site of W. Herbert Fowler’s 1921-1944, Hotel Ambassador/Rancho Golf Club course.
Legends of golf teeing off on hole 10 – Rating Rancho – March 1949.
The most historic photo ever taken of Southern California legends!
Bell designed and built over 60 golf courses in California, Arizona and Hawaii. Dawson a 5-time So Cal Amateur champion, course architect, and 1949 U.S. Walker Cup Team. McCormick was 1937 U.S. Amateur Public Links, twice Cal State, three time So Cal Amateur champion, and 1949 Walker Cup Team. Luxford was the Father of Celebrity golf, ran Crosby’s Clambake, S.C.G.A. President, L.A. Open fundraiser, and President of the L.A. Recreation and Parks Commission. Johnson worked for Bell as Greenkeeper at: Royal Palms, L.A. Rec. and Parks Griffith Park, Architect with Bell and Billy Bell Junior. Von Elm was multiple So Cal, Cal State, Trans Mississippi amateur champion. He beat his 1926 U.S. Walker Cup team mate, Bobby Jones, to win the 1926 U.S. Amateur, while playing for the Rancho Golf Club! Hunter was the son of Henry Hunter, Royal Cinque Ports Greenkeeper/Professional, and nephew of Ramsey Hunter, designer of Royal St. Georges. He was 1921 British Amateur champion. Rancho Golf Club secretary and Von Elm partner in SCGA Team Play. Founder of the L.A. Open, and Riviera Country Club head professional for decades.
Bill Johnson with Scotty MacDonald who was Rancho’s first green keeper.
The Recreation and Park Department held their official municipal opening on Friday, July 8, 1949. The next day the new course hosted the 24th U.S.G.A. Public Links Championship ( July 9 to July 16).
The founders of the new Rancho Golf Club met on July 10, 1949 at Riviera Country Club – Frank Andrews, Lefty Poulin, Pepper Reinhart Brenkus, Gene Andrews, Dorothy Packham, Irene Lacey, Harry Packham, and Charlie Lacey (head pro).
The Rancho Golf Course opened to the general public on July 17, 1949.
When he arrived in New York from England in 1920, W. Herbert Fowler was already a long time Royal and Ancient amateur golfer, who had won the Jubilee Vase in 1902, and the Bombay Medal in 1903, at St Andrews, and had played on the English golf team of 1903-1905, against Scotland. In his early days he was a crack cricketer, playing for Somerset County. As the dean of the British Experts in golf course architecture, he came to America in January 1920, and headed to California.
Now that the ball-makers have successfully ruined most of our leading courses, it remains for the golf architects to so design the greens that they shall be both difficult of access and that the putting shall demand care and skill in judging slopes and undulations. – W. Herbert Fowler
Mr. Fowler belonged to the following clubs in 1920: Royal and Ancient, Royal North Devon, The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Royal St. George’s, Cooden Beach, Burnham, Somerset, and Walton Heath, where he was also manager. Fowler was also a long time director of the Royal and Ancient.
William Herbert Fowler’s home club, and course design masterpiece, was Walton Heath Golf Club, which, when it opened in 1904, was the longest golf course in England, just as the Haskel Ball was changing the game, and making the old golf courses obsolete. The legendary James Braid was Walton Heath’s head professional.
The outstanding features of the seventeenth hole at Walton Heath are more grandiose, their creator – Herbert Fowler – being of Anakim. No doubt he was assisted by recollections of the seventh hole at St. Andrew’s in the good old days before the short cut to it on the right of the hills was opened up. Then it was necessary to pick up a long second with a brassie or cleek, steering the ball home to the left of Strath, and not too much to the left lest it be caught in the sand by the Eden. It is hardly too much to say that the measure of glory which has departed from St. Andrew’s is preserved at Walton Heath. – The Professional Golfers of America, August 1920
Between 1920 and 1923, Herbert Fowler traveled between San Francisco and Los Angeles, remodeling and designing many of the great golf courses of California, including; the Burlingame Country Club, the Presidio of San Francisco, Menlo Country Club, Sacramento Country Club, Lincoln Park Municipal, Olympic Club, Crystal Springs Country Club, Sequoyah Country Club, Victoria Club, Los Angeles Country Club – North and South, Rancho Golf Club, Del Monte No.1, and Del Monte No.2 at Pebble Beach.
Fowler remodeled the historic, William Robertson designed, Del Monte No.1 golf links, nine holes at a time, starting early in 1920. By April he had also made a plan for lengthening the troubled Del Monte No.2, at Pebble Beach, which was considered too short for the big hitters, with only holes; 2, 6, and 14, up to the challenge. Surprisingly, this was deemed necessary, despite the many alterations made to both courses from 1918 through 1919 by the Del Monte Country Club Green Committee, led by Francis McComas, Douglas Grant and Charles E. Maud. Less than a month before Fowler arrived to remodel Del Monte No. 1 and 2, the Green Committee announced that both golf courses had never been in better shape!
It was Douglas Grant of Burlingame, the son of a wealthy merchant in San Francisco, a Yale graduate, who had married the daughter of Sir William Rutherford, the Mayor of Liverpool, who helped bring W. Herbert Fowler to California. Grant lived in England from 1910 to 1915, mainly for his golf game. His home course was Herbert Fowler’s Walton Heath Golf Club, where James Braid was his teacher. He also played at Royal St. George’s, and at other clubs around London, and in the south of France. He entered many major amateur and Open events during those years, and was well known in the press. In 1912 he beat John Ball in the Irish championship.
Bernard Darwin, who called Fowler “perhaps the most daring and original of all golfing architects”, recalled meeting Grant, the smooth swinging Californian, at Woodcote Park, the sensational new golf course Fowler built for the Royal Automobile Club in 1915.
Douglas Grant is credited with co-designing Del Monte No. 2 at Pebble Beach with Jack Neville. He returned to California from England in January 1916. On his first visit to Del Monte in February, he was said to have said that the land at Pebble Beach was “some of the best he has ever seen for the construction of a course. It is very probable that the Del Monte management will start the construction of a new course at the seaside resort in the very near future.”
Grant, left San Francisco with his family, and headed back to live at Walton Heath, in October, 1919. One can imagine the conversation Grant and Fowler had back in England, concerning the latter’s upcoming trip to California in the new year, where he would be remodeling Grant’s home courses; the Burlingame Country Club, and Del Monte No.1 and No. 2 at Pebble Beach!
According to Hay Chapman, in the San Francisco Chronicle, W. Herbert Fowler’s 1920-1922 alterations to the Pebble Beach links included:
New back tees added to holes 2,6,9,10,11,13 & 18. New greens built for holes 1,7,9 & 12. New traps added to holes 1 & 17. Hole 5 was also straightened.
In the summer of 1922, Fowler’s most radical alteration was the building of a new raised green in front of the Lodge. With a raised tee, calling for an accurate shot with the ocean as a hazard, it makes a 535 yard hole. The fairway has been widened and it will be a big improvement over the eighteenth of last year, creating what many say is one of the finest finishing holes in golf.
The final W. Herbert Fowler updates at Pebble Beach were completed for the 1923 Del Monte summer season:
New tee at 2, lengthening the hole from a par 4 to a par 5 New tee and green at 3. New larger tee at 4. New tees at 5 and 6, ten yards added. New tee at 10, moved to the right to tempt the long hitters New tee at 13. New tee and green at 14, lengthening it from a par 4 (430) to a par 5 (580), the longest hole in the state New larger tee at 15. New green at 16, hogback removed.
W. Herbert Fowler at Del Monte No.2, Pebble Beach by J.I.B. Jones
