Scotsman's Dream

by Warner Bott Berry

Synopsis of the Story

March, 1933. In the heart of the Great Depression, three men dine at the exclusive Union League Club on New York’s east side and undertake to design a golf course for the future. Their design will be revealed and made public in the year 2000 and the golf course they jointly created will then be built and opened for play. Until that time it will remain secret. The three men are A.W. Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie, and Donald Ross, the three greatest golf course architects in the history of the game. They have never worked together before, much less on a three-way project. Tillinghast arranges the meeting and, by the sheer force of his personality, persuades MacKenzie and Ross to work with him. They proceed to spend a week on the land which Tillinghast has declared "The most perfect place I have ever seen for a golf course." It is a lovely farm, overlooking Cayuga Lake, near Ithaca, New York, in the fabled Finger Lakes region of Central New York. On that site the architects envision and design a classic golfing ground where future champions will play for national championships in the twenty-first century. The land is owned by a wealthy Scotsman who underwrites the costs of the project. He is a native of St. Andrews and of the Old Course, who dreams of furthering his heritage by establishing an American St. Andrews on his precious property By agreement, the Scotsman keeps the design plan secret for 66 years, all the while scrupulously preparing his land for its ultimate destiny. The secret is known to only a few persons, and all three architects go to their graves preserving it. Tillinghast, MacKenzie, and Ross believed their achievement would prove to the golfing world of the millennium that classic designs always yield classic courses, regardless of when they are built. The architects also dreamed of republishing their extraordinary talents long after their deaths, and of replicating their classic work for the golfers and golf architects of the far future.

August. 1999. in his final days, the Scotsman summons to ithaca his only living relative, a wild, Texan rancher/golfer with a resume featuring only the red stamp of failure. There the Texan is advised by the dying Scotsman of his long-held dream and told of the three architects’ secret joint design. Given the responsibility for building their golf course, wishing to start a new life, and finding in Ithaca the salvation and love he feared might forever elude him, the Texan battles a cold-hearted enemy in his quest to bring both his great uncle’s dream and the architects’ one-of-a-kind golf course to reality. The names "Tillinghast," "MacKenzie," and "Ross" come alive again at the turn of the new century and the news of their clandestine design plan spreads like wildfire throughout the golfing world. Golfing purists flock to Ithaca to lobby in support of the building of the golf course, the USGA blesses it with a formal stamp of approval, and the past and future of golf are poised to merge at the site. These endorsements prove that the golfers of the next century love the traditions of the game as well as the golf courses born of "classic design" and created by the architects of the Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture, but serious obstacles remain. Will the "secret course" ever be built? Will it be all that its designers believed it would be? Will the dream of a tenacious Scottish professor and history’s three greatest golf course architects come true? Will the Twenty-First Century be blessed by the result of a vision shared by four far-sighted men in 1933? Or will it all be just a dream?

For the answers, a walk through the times and traditions of Tillinghast, MacKenzie, and Ross, and an examination of their personalities and architectural philosophies, read Scotsman’s Dream. For ordering information call Mr.Berry's office at (415) 981-1870 or send a fax to (415) 788-7102.