GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group
Willie Park, Jr.
Jonathan Davison:
Mick Wall
Great to hear from somebody who hails from the north east, you will hear me rant about the north east of England all the time. The north of England must be the best value for golf any where.
Along with our great coastline we have Brancepeth Castle a wonderful Colt design around £25 for a day ticket.
Newbiggin is a rustic old fashioned links, in terms of the course it has some wonderful golf holes, really good strategic holes but it is probably only appreciated by a traditionalist. For the price of Gullane £85 you could play Dunstanburgh, Seahouses, Bamburgh and Newbiggin and I could recommend many more.
ForkaB:
Great picture, Craig
That should be sent to every green committee member who ever wants to ADD bunkers to their course.
PS--reminds me of a few of the greens on one of my wee Willie Park Jr. courses, Burntisland.......
T_MacWood:
I have no specific knowledge of Park visting Ashdown Forest, but I would be surprised if he hadn't...being based in London and playing numerous challenge matches any time, any place. Plus it was a very famous course.
That green looks very similar to 'The Table' a trademark of Park's, based on a green at Musselburgh. Supposedly he built at least one of these greens on every course he designed.
Art_Schaupeter:
I am currently working on a master plan for a Willie Park Jr. course in Kentucky, Bellefonte Country Club. I have a plan from 1921, which indicates he is the designer, but the course was built over a period of years starting in '21 and extending into the early 30's, well after he had passed away. Based on the timing of the construction and a variety of plans over the years showing variations to the original routing, it doesn't look to me like there are very many original greens left.
On the other hand, you can see the quality of the routing from hole to hole. The golf course sits on a fairly severe property with a lot of slopes in the fairways. It is only about 6000 yards long, at a par of 71, but the small, sloping greens and the tough stances in the fairways if you don't play for position give the course some teeth. Most of the holes work very well on this difficult site. The few holes that don't have been re-routed over the years and don't match the original plan from 1921.
What courses in North America still provide the best example of Park's green style, and would be worth looking at? I am still in the process of developing the master plan, and would like to stay true to Park's intent to the degree that that is possible. At this point, I believe there are only 4 or 5 greens that might still be originals on the nine holes that were built first, presumably before he became ill. The second nine holes I think still have seven original greens, but they were built after Willie had passed away. They appear true to the original 1921 plan, but he wasn't around to see them built, and I haven't been able to determine who was.
Any thoughts or comments are appreciated. It is tough finding much information on Willie Park.
Art
T_MacWood:
Very interesting...I've never heard of Bellefonte...Park never listed it, probably because of the delay in construction. I wonder how many more Bellefontes are out there?
I don't know which courses in N.America would be the best examples of Park's green styles. In Ohio (and the Midwest) Marion & Ashland are two course with Park 9's. I doubt he was involved in construction of either, Ashland does have his plans so it might be helpful. Congress Lake has a number of interesting Park greens, but they intermingled with Ross greens. Slyvania is probably the purest Park course in Ohio.
Michigan might be worth exploring--I'm not certain how well preserved Pine Lake and Battle Creek are, same with Highland in Indianapolis. From what I can tell, and based on what others have said, Olympia Fields is well preserved.
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