Golf

A member of Highland, Lloyd McGlincy, asked me if I knew who the golf course architect was that designed Highland, and with a puzzled look I said no. Lloyd has always presumed that Bill Diddel was the designer of Highland, but found out in an article that Willie Park, Jr. was the golf architect.

Willie Park, Jr. was born in Musselburgh, Scotland in 1864 and died in 1925 at the age of 61. The 1997 U.S. Senior Open was contested on one of Willie Park, Jr.’s finest designs, Olympia Fields-North. The course dates back to 1922, and previously hosted the 1928 U.S. Open and the P.G.A. Championships of 1925 and 1961.

In the history of golf course architecture, no designer has benefitted from a more distinguished golf-family pedigree than Willie Park, Jr. His father, Willie, Sr. was a four-time British Open winner (1860-63-66-75) and his uncle Mungo took the title in 1874. Young Willie and his two golfing brothers, Frank and Mungo, grew up in the midst of a flourishing golf culture. Their education was in the tool shop making golf balls and golf clubs or in the caddie yards of the famed Musselburgh links east of Edinburgh.

Willie, Jr. himself was a keen competitor known chiefly for a loose two-handed grip that often resulted in wicked pulls off the tee. But he was also a deadly putter, a skill that kept him in many matches despite his wayward long game. He parleyed his two British Open titles (1887 & 1889) into a flourishing trade in golf equipment during an era when the game was taking hold throughout the British Isles. He was also enough of a promoter to see the virtues of publishing his own instruction books, including “The Game of Golf” (1896), a widely read text that was the first such book ever written by a golf professional.

In those days professional golfers were also expected to be skilled in the art of greens keeping. It was therefore nature that they be asked to design courses needed to attract new generations of golfers, many of whom lived inland, far from the traditional “Links” land. Willie, Jr. was a critical figure in the adapting of seemingly ill-suited heath lands, into well-drained ground for golf turf. Without a doubt his most impressive achievement was at Sunningdale, 20 miles west of London. There, at what quickly became an exclusive residential community, Park transformed a raw stretch of pine scruff into a vibrant stretch of well-bunkered golf holes.

Mr. Park made his first survey of the U.S. during the extended stay in 1895 during which time he set up a branch office for his equipment company in New York. With the British Golf market stalled by the first World War, Park returned to the states in 1916 for what turned out to be a three year stay. It was then that he established his reputation throughout the Northeast, and Midwest as a skilled Golf course designer and construction supervisor.