But at White Bear, Donald Ross is the
name that matters most of all.
Ross’ history with the club is a bit fuzzy,
as most documentation of
the original course design was lost in the fire. All
that survived was
a promotional pamphlet bearing the legend: “Original design by
William
Watson. Developed by Tom Vardon and Donald Ross.”
Vardon tinkered
with the layout during his tenure, which began in
1916. It is believed that
Watson, a well-regarded Scottish designer,
created some initial drawings for a
lost front nine. But Ross’
fingerprints mark each of the 6,471 yards that sit
across a road from
the shores of White Bear Lake, where several of St. Paul’s
most
prominent families formed a sailing club in 1889.
In the early 20th
century, Ross performed a considerable amount of work in Minnesota,
designing or
re-working Minikhada, Interlachen and Woodhill around the
Twin Cities, as well
as Northland near Duluth. White Bear’s official
history includes the diary entry
of a member recounting a 1910 meeting
at which Ross (but not Watson or Vardon)
discussed plans for the front
nine. Further supporting Ross as the designer is
the biography
Discovering Donald Ross, which places him at the club in 1912 and
1915.
The front opened in 1912 and the back in 1916.
Having grown up in
Dornoch, Scotland, Ross was heavily influenced by
the way natural beauty had
been harnessed at his home course, Royal
Dornoch, as well as by a typically
Scottish love of a brisk walk. The
raw material at White Bear was a rugged,
rolling parcel that is
believed to have been a potato farm. At this stage in his
career, Ross
was designing courses that focused on the existing contours of
the land
and took advantage of natural mounds, many of which mark the topography
of the rough at White Bear.
