On September 21, Herbert H. Barker, Golf Architect and pro at the Garden City Golf Club, was appointed to lay out grounds for an 18 hole golf course at a rate of $25 per day. Barker was a talented young golfer from Huddersfield, England, who played on the British International Team as well as in Amateur Championships in the late 1890s. He turned pro in 1900 and left England to take the Head Pro job at Garden City.

Barker also dabbled in golf course design and construction. He soon became known as one of the best authorities in the United States on that subject. His services were in great demand for laying out new courses along with the modification and improvement of existing courses. He designed three courses in New Jersey: Arcola, Rumson CC in 1910, and Raritan Valley CC in 1911. He did not restrict himself to New Jersey, however. In 1909-1910 he was working on Newport (RI) GC, Richmond (VA) CC, Waverly (OR) GC, Spokane (WA) CC, and many others.

Herbert Barker was no slouch on the golf course. He competed in the U.S. Open a number of times. He won the Southern Open in 1920 with a record score of 298 on the East Lake course in Atlanta, home of Bobby Jones. He was a talented writer. An extensive article under his byline in The American Golfer (April 1909) compared the styles of the American versus British golfers. “The English looked better swinging,” he claimed, “but the Americans drove the ball farther and were much better putters.” He was a disciple of Devereux Emmett, who built many courses on Long Island and who was a student of the punitive school of golf course architecture: an infinitesimal number of bunkers and fast, sloping greens. Barker left Garden City in 1913 to become pro at the Roe Buck Club in Alabama.

History via Arcola CC