Sean Tully did it again.
Three years after discovering a long-lost Charles Blair Macdonald golf course, Washington Park Club on Chicago’s South Side, the noted California-based golf historian unearthed the only known photograph of Seth Raynor and Charles Blair Macdonald together, a veritable Holy Grail in the world of those of us who research the Great Design Triumvirate.
The image appears in the Aug. 1, 1915 edition of Town and Country magazine under the title of The New Lido Course at Long Beach. Between the two architects stands Charles Carstairs, a noted and influential art dealer and, according to the caption, a “connoisseur of golf courses.” Raynor’s name is misspelled.
Assuming the photo, which is still under copyright, was taken in the previous two months from when it ran, Raynor was 40 or 41, Macdonald 61 and Carstairs 49.
This is one of less than a dozen known photographs of Raynor, who looks well beyond his 40-plus years in it.
The article was likely written by H.J. Whigham, the editor of Town and Country, Macdonald’s best friend and son-in-law. Whigham was also an accomplished golfer, having won the 1896 and 1897 U.S. Amateur. While leading the publication, Whigham spent a good deal of ink praising Macdonald and his courses.
Tully, who is an expert on the life and work of Alister Mackenzie and historic California golf architecture in general, had not intended to search for anything Raynor or Macdonald related when he sat down at the San Francisco Public Library last week.
According to Tully, while waiting for assistance with a microfilm machine, he logged into his account and was searching digitized T&C for golf course profiles penned by Whigham when he stumbled onto the Lido article, which appeared a year before the course opened.
“I did a double take and took a close look at both men before I sent the article to the one guy that would know how important this photo is and hopefully not give him a heart attack,” Tully wrote in a message.
While I didn’t suffer a heart attack, there was a prolonged spell of arrhythmia and joy when I realized what I was looking at, shortly after opening my computer that morning.
I saw that the message containing the article was sent at 3:33 a.m. West Coast time, so I figured Tully was down a rabbit hole and it had to contain a significant discovery. I didn’t imagine anything like the photo, though.
“I knew that this was a very important image as there has not been a photo produced of these two golf architecture luminaries together. It is one find in particular that makes my time researching so rewarding,” Tully said. “I’m one of a handful of researchers that have been looking for a photo of Raynor and Macdonald together and to find it means a lot to me given all the time and work that goes into my research.”
He and I know there are still other treasures to be uncovered.
“Onto the next mystery,” he wrote. “I’ve got a couple to still go, that’s for sure. When did Mackenzie and (Robert) Hunter first meet and when did MacKenzie and Bobby Jones first meet!”
My money says he finds the answers and more.
(I penned an article on the Washington Park golf course for McKellar magazine. A link to the issue in which it ran is found here.)
