A. W. TillinghastAlbert Warren Tillinghast, architect of Ridgewood’s present courses, was possibly the most creative and poetic golf architect in the first half-century of the game in America, and one of its most outlandish figures as well.When the USGA noted that four national championships, including the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood were scheduled in 1974 for Tillinghast courses, executive director Frank Hannigan was asked to write an article about the man and his work. Hannigan produced the definitive work on Tillinghast, for which we are indebted.
Tillinghast (“Tillie,” as he liked to be called, or “Tillie the Terrible” to his friendly detractors) was born on May 7, 1874, in Frankfort, a suburb of Philadelphia. He was the apple of his father’s eye and as such was reared “without the slightest pretense of discipline.” A rugged little redhead, he eventually graduated from cricket and a form of “street rugby” to golf when golf became popular around Philadelphia in the early 1890s.
By the turn of the century he had made the pilgrimage to St Andrews several times and had developed a close relationship with Old Tom Morris. He was a frequent playing partner of Andrew Kirkaldy, another renowned St Andrews professional. Such was his reputation in Britain that when the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society toured this country in 1903, it was Tillinghast who acted as their host, showing them an uproarious time along the way.
During the early years of this century, Tillinghast was a central figure in Philadelphia golf, rubbing elbows with Hugh Wilson, designer of Merion, and George Crump, builder of Pine Valley. Tillinghast and Crump were part of a small group of avid golfers who rode the railroad to Atlantic City to play every Saturday morning during the colder months, and it was there in 1903 that the term “birdie” was added to the golfing lexicon: “It came to pass that one day we were playing the long twelfth hole with a keen following wind. The hole usually played as a three-shotter, but on this occasion someone got away two screamers and got home in two. As the second shot found the green, Bill Smith or his brother Ab exclaimed: ‘That’s a bird of a shot.’ Immediately the other remarked that such an effort, which resulted in cutting par by a stroke, should be rewarded doubly and there on the spot it was agreed that thereafter this should be done. And so it was, the exclamation of Smith, giving it the name, Bird, which gradually was to become a term of the game, used wherever it is played today.” This was the origin of the term, as described by Tillinghast, who did much to publicize its use.
“Tillinghast revered Crump,” says Hannigan. “He said he often walked the Pine Valley property with his friend before the construction job. Tillinghast properly labels Pine Valley as Crump’s design, but he claimed he had helped sell the ‘concepts’ of the seventh (another of the perennial all-American holes) and the thirteenth (a majestic par-4 hole) to his friend.”During those years, Tillinghast also dabbled in golf photography and began collecting golf art. He worked as a golf reporter as well, and his annual rankings of the nation’s leading players were eagerly anticipated. In 1916 he went out on a limb, including a fourteen-year-old lad from Atlanta on his list: “Little Bobby Jones of Atlanta is a really fine player and shows every indication of becoming a tremendously great one, once he is master of himself, which must come with maturity.” He occasionally contributed articles to Golf Illustrated and eventually (1933–1934) served that magazine as editor. He also wrote two books of golf fiction, The Cobble Valley Golf Yarnsand The Mutt. We reproduce here one of his comments on golf course design:
If a hole does not possess a striking individuality through some gift of nature, it must be given as much as possible artificially and the artifice must be introduced in so subtle a manner as to make it seem natural. I feel that I have never attempted a more important contribution to golf course construction than this: the immaculate preparation of approaches to greens. In recent years I have devoted almost the same attention to contouring them as to the putting greens themselves. I think that I will always adhere to my old theory that a controlled shot to a closely guarded green is the surest test of any man’s golf.
Tillinghast's suggested hole names.In the early years of golf in this country, Tillinghast was considered an excellent, if not outstanding player. He played in our national championships several times, giving the likes of Walter Travis, Chick Evans, and Chandler Egan a good run for their money. He finished twenty-fifth in the 1910 U.S. Open and played on the Philadelphia team that competed in the first Lesley Cup Match in 1905, competing against teams representing metropolitan New York and Massachusetts. He was a close friend of Jerry Travers, whom he helped celebrate victory in the 1907 U.S. Amateur with an epic party the night before the finals.
Tillinghast’s career as a golf architect began in 1907, when Charles C. Worthington asked him to lay out a course on the banks of the Delaware at Shawnee, Pennsylvania. That course was an immediate success and led to other design jobs and his first experience as organizer of a professional tournament, the Shawnee Open. In 1916 Tillinghast became one of a select group of amateurs invited to participate in the organizational meeting of the PGA. His signature appears on that organization’s “Magna Carta” as one of its founders.
By the end of World War I, Tillinghast’s services as an architect were very much in demand. The courses at Baltusrol and Somerset Hills were built and Tillinghast soon became the hottest name in golf architecture.He set up an office for the A. W. Tillinghast Company on Forty-second Street in Manhattan and made his fortune during the 1920s, with courses such as Winged Foot and Fresh Meadow adding to his reputation. According to Hannigan:
Whatever he earned, he spent more. His primary weaknesses were drinking and gambling, but we found one spry octogenarian who worked with him and who swears that much of the Tillinghast Company profits were lost in the backing of sour Broadway musicals. In brief, our man became one of the big New York City sports of the Jimmy Walker era, and he dressed and acted the part to the hilt.
They say he could talk like a dream, played the piano entertainingly (by ear, of course), could do a nifty soft- shoe routine, and had a distinct talent for sketching. He was a flashy dresser and his trademark was a glorious mustache, with waxed ends, which looked like they could spike incoming and outgoing
He was prone to occasional rages, made bizarre because of his penchant for waving around a pistol. And there were the classic benders, which occurred two, three, four times a year and lasted as long as a month. He would simply take off, disappear – in better times with a limousine and chauffeur, in not-so-good times with his wife’s jewelry and furs. Eventually, he would come home.
Though he loved Scotland and the traditions it gave to the game, Tillie was not entirely enamored of the traditional Scottish links as he saw them near the turn of the century. For one thing, he abhorred “blind” shots and hidden hazards: for another, he felt that some of the venerable courses abroad had overly large putting greens which he insisted tended to discourage sharp iron play and, instead, put too much emphasis on putting. His inclination was to be generous in the width of the landing areas in the drive zone (he was not himself a great driver) and then tighten things up. His putting greens, at their best, were exciting and innovative. They tended to be small, tightly-bunkered, slanted, and very racy, indeed. He liked to think that the design of his par 4 holes gave the player an easy and a hard side to approach from the fairway. He was always bullish on mounds and toward the end of his career he toyed with grassy hollows in place of sand-filled bunkers, feeling that the introduction of the sand wedge had robbed bunkers of their sting. – Frank Hannigan on TillinghastTillinghast experienced financial difficulties during the Depression years, which eased some when George Jacobus put him on the PGA payroll as a course consultant. Tillinghast traveled the country for more than two years, visiting clubs that employed PGA professionals, offering free advice on how to minimize maintenance costs– typically by removing unnecessary bunkers, particularly cross bunkers 100 to 150 yards from the tee. The program proved quite a success and Tillie traveled the country from August 1935 through the end of 1937 performing his service.
Tillinghast also was considered the “guardian angel” of the USGA Green Section. For years he advocated for research on agronomic matters related to golf turf. It has been said that a Tillinghast green is easy to identify – it drains properly.
Tillinghast became a proponent of public golf facilities and his last contract as an architect was with the Bethpage Park Commission, designing their first four courses in 1935 - 1936. His “last hurrah” was Bethpage Black, where he let his creativity run wild one last time, the result being a course that bore a striking resemblance to Pine Valley.
During his most productive years, Tillinghast lived near Ridgewood in Harrington Park and during the early 1930s he was a frequent visitor to the club, an honorary member, and a friend to the junior players. He often played the course with George Jacobus and at times with Bobby Jones, who had retired from competitive golf after his Grand Slam of 1930. It is said that a bunker that once existed well short of the green on 9 East served as Jones’ inspiration for a similarly placed bunker on the tenth hole at Augusta National.
Toward the late 1930s, however, Tillinghast removed himself to the west coast and became a respected and well-known antiques dealer in Beverly Hills. After a heart attack in 1940, he moved to Toledo to live with the older of his two daughters. There he suffered a fatal heart attack two years later, dying on May 19, 1942.
Other Notable Tillinghast Designs
Tillinghast's original layout.Alpine Country Club – Alpine,New Jersey,1931
Baltimore Country Club (Five Farms) – Lutherville,Maryland,1926
Baltusrol Golf Club (Lower and Upper) – Springfield,New Jersey,1922
Bethpage State Park (Black and Red) – Farmingdale,New York,1936,1935
Brook Hollow Golf Club – Dallas,Texas,1920
Brooklawn Country Club – Fairfield,Connecticut,1929
Fenway Golf Club – Scarsdale,New York,1924
Fresh Meadow Country Club (NLE) – Flushing,New York,1923
Newport Country Club – Newport,Rhode Island,1924
Philadelphia Cricket Club – Flourtown,Pennsylvania,1922
Quaker Ridge Golf Club – Scarsdale,New York,1918
San Francisco Golf Club – San Francisco,California,1915
Shackamaxon Golf & Country Club – Westfield,New Jersey,1916
Somerset Hills Country Club – Bernardsville,New Jersey,1917
Winged Foot Golf Club (West and East) – Mamaroneck,New York,1923
The Tillinghast Dream Eighteen
In its June 13,2006 issue, previewing the U.S.Open at Winged Foot, Sports Illustrated published a list it called the “A.W.Tillinghast Dream 18.” Two Ridgewood Country Club holes, 4 West and 6 Center, were included.]]>