55 As has been well documented, as a young American journalist Olmsted visited Birkenhead Park – known as the People’s Garden – in Merseyside in 1850, three years after its opening. He was on a tour of English estates, eager to learn about their gardening practices. But here was Birkenhead, the world’s first public park, built and maintained by the town. As would be imitated by Wells and Slater in America, the goal of the 120-acre park was fresh air and a taste of the countryside to industrial workers. This is considered the moment when Olmsted realised recreation and natural beauty were not commodities for the elite, but places where each person is of equal intrinsic value, each having personal dignity. Olmsted observed: “Five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden.” He returned to spark a revolution in egalitarian and democratic design, not to mention laying the foundation for the national parks. What’s vexing about the visions of both Ross and Olmsted, though conceived in a spirit of beauty and egalitarianism, is that they now define some of the country’s most exclusive neighbourhoods and clubs. In an age of rising threats to democracy, not to mention a Saudi-backed challenge to the professional golf tours, might the anniversaries of the births of Ross and Olmsted return us to a discussion not only on civic investments on behalf of the public good, but also of returning golf to its democratic roots and values? From Olmsted’s birth in 1822 to Ross’s death in 1948, the world went through what historians call the first and second waves of democracy. Constitutional democracy spread in Europe and Latin America and independence movements worldwide threw off the mantle of colonialism. While naive to think landscape design and the rise of popular golf were central to these historical movements, at the same time the celebrations of Olmsted and Ross should not underplay the roles public space and recreation play in ideas of democracy and an ‘aristocracy for all’. GCA Mark Wagner is a golf historian and the founding director of the Binienda Center for Civic Engagement at Worcester State University An illustration of Cohasse’s third hole by golf artist David Lussier, which was created to celebrate the club’s centenary in 2018 Image: Illustration by David Lussier “ As far as a home golf course goes, this one prepares you for golf anywhere”
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