The Canadian landscape as Art. Stanley Thompson, Golf Course Architecture, the Group of Seven, and the Aesthetic of Canadian Nationalism

ABSTRACT

Golf Courses symbolise more than the relationship between player and landscape. In Canada, where the landscape historically is tied to national identity, golf courses can take on nationalist meanings as well. This paper investigates the relationship between landscape and nationalism through Canadian golf architect legend Stanley Thompson’s golf courses. In particular, Thompson’s creation of the Heroic School of Golf Architecture represents a Canadian adaptation to the Strategic School of Golf Architecture. Thompson allowed the landscape, in particular the dramatic landscape, to dictate the courses and in doing so imbued popular Canadian nationalist ideas in these courses. Using his contemporaries, the famous Group of Seven landscape artists, as comparison shows how different types of artists used the landscape to express Canadian national ideas.

Keywords:

• Canada
• Golf Architecture
• Art History
• Nationalism
• twentieth century

Notes

1 Poulter investigated the sports of snowshoeing, tobogganing and lacrosse and their development in Montreal in the mid­nineteenth century to highlight this pattern.

2 The Stanley Thompson Society since 2012 embarked on a project to authenticate and verify designs worked on by Stanley Thompson. Many sources claim Thompson worked on anything between 140 and over 200 courses; the society hopes to authenticate all of those claimed to be Thompson designs. The records are not finished but the most updated numbers are provided. Refer to Fig. 1 to view a map with the current ninety courses locations across the country. The ninety courses were taken from the Stanley Thompson Society website and have been included if they had current mailing addresses with corresponding postal­code verification.

3 The first iteration in 1988 ranked twenty­five courses, expanding to the top fifty in 1992, and finally to the top hundred in 2000.

4 Thompson compiled the book to promote his business interests. The short work reads as a promotional brochure for hiring a golf architect but also a guide for other aspiring course designers. Thompson himself noted that the golf boom of the 1920s necessitated the creation of these professional golf architects, and that imposters would end up costing golf clubs more time and money than hiring the professional the first time (Thompson 1934?, p. 5).

5 The emphasis is mine.

6 In 1906 C. K Hutchinson succinctly outlined the prescriptions for the Heroic School despite no course existing of its type. Writing on the placing and forming of hazards, Hutchinson provided Thompson a template for his Heroic courses. Hutchinson reacted against the rigidity of the Penal School, but wanted to afford players to take risks In order to practically accomplish this, Hutchinson advised that architects use diagonal hazards. Hutchinson described ‘These, so called ‘pinching shots’ afford great satisfaction when successfully negotiated, and test not only a player’s powers but also his self­confidence’. The name Heroic comes from these decisions. Should the player, betting on themselves, attempt the dangerous shot or play it safe. If the hazards are conquered, the hero therefore has a far easier path left than one who chose not to wrestle with the full challenge (C. K. Hutchinson 1906, pp. 157–8).

7 This principle punctuated many moral arguments for the benefits of exercise, especially modern sports, in the late eighteenth and entire nineteenth century.

8 Date of construction corroborated with dating files held in Stanley Thompson’s archive in Guelph (List of Thompson Courses by Year Started).

9 Language, religion and shared history stood as the most common elements in national character or identity at this time.