I was just reading through the thread started by Mike Cirba about Cobb's Creek and ran across a mention by TEPaul of William Gordon. Tom mentions that "apparently the old PPGA (Philadelphia Public Golf Association) was sort of the brainchild of longtime Flynn foreman and then independent architect William Gordon." That's the first mention I've run across about William Gordon here on GCA and I was interested to see it since Gordon designed my home course, Willow Oaks Country Club in Richmond, VA. I just did a GCA.com search and find a few comments about him, but not much.
I've only played two of Gordon's courses (to my knowledge anyway): Willow Oaks and Fairfax Country Club (northern Virginia.) Both were designed by Gordon in the late 50's during a pretty bleak period in golf course architecture. I am certainly not blown away by his work at either course, although his routing work at Willow Oaks was well done. My suspicion has always been that he may have been a pretty good work horse at getting courses built for others, but as an architect he may have been ... hmmm, well, a good construction foreman. I'd be interested in any comments on that suspicion since it is an uneducated surmise on my part and if it is wrong, I'd like to be abused for holding this opinion for so long. He certainly made lasting contributions to golf by virtue of his work for Toomey, Flynn, and others but perhaps his contributions as an independent architect were not as great?
My course - Willow Oaks - opened for play in the late 1950's (nine holes opened in '58 and the full course in '59.) Over the course of the years, particularly in the late 80's and into the mid-90's, there were considerable changes made, primarily to greens. Nine holes of the course are in the flood plain of the James River (we call it "the lower nine".) Gordon's original greens were at the same level as fairways. This proved to be troublesome in the lower nine because whenever the course would flood (not an unusual occurrence) the greens would be under water for days at a time. Over the years, this caused severe problems in the green sites, as you can imagine. The work done in the 80's and 90's was geared primarily toward getting greens out of the flood plain to protect them from continuing damage. These series of changes basically erased any vestiges of the original Gordon greens. Bunkering was also totally redone as these changes were made.
We've recently completed a comprehensive redesign / renovation (pick your poison) of the course under the direction of local architect Lester George. There were many reasons for the renovation, chief among them the need to fix drainage problems which have plagued the course for many, many years. There was also a general feeling that the course itself held very little interest in terms of strategy. The routing was solid and was retained but other than that the original Gordon course is unrecognizable.
I'd be interested to get some more information or observations about William Gordon. The reason I'm particularly interested at this point is that in addition to the course renovation we've just completed, the Club is also going through a year long series of events celebrating it's 50th Anniversary. The culmination of this will be the course reopening, hopefully Memorial Day weekend 2008 if greens are ready by then. It might be interesting to have some more information about William Gordon to include in a little Club history that we are preparing.
I'd also just be interested to satisfy some of my own curiosity about him. Thanks for any information or observations about Mr. Gordon or any of his courses.
For whatever it's worth, I actually did a little bit of research on Gordon myself about 10 years or so ago and posted a several paragraph blurb about him on a website. Here's the information I wrote, which is based primarily (as far as I can recall) on information from Cornish and Whitten's book on course architecture:
"William F. Gordon was born in 1893 in Rhode Island. Gordon was a Founding Member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Other Founding Members included William P. Bell, Robert White, William Langford, Donald Ross, Robert Bruce Harris, Stanley Thompson, Robert Trent Jones, William Diddle, James B. McGovern, Jack Daray, Sr., Robert "Red" Lawrence, and Perry Maxwell. Gordon served as President of the ASGCA in 1953 and again in 1967 and also served as Chairman of its first Historical Committee.
Gordon was an outstanding athlete in his youth and served as athletic instructor with the U.S. Navy during World War I. Upon discharge he took a job as salesman with the Peterson Seed Company and in 1920 joined the Carter's Tested Seed Company as superintendent of its golf course construction division. In this capacity he constructed courses for such well-known golf architects as Willie Park, Jr., Leonard Macomber, Donald Ross and Devereux Emmet.
In 1923 Gordon joined the firm of Toomey and Flynn, where he remained until 1941. During the Depression, he was also part owner and manager of Marble Hall GC in Philadelphia. Gordon founded the Pennsylvania Public Golfers association and served as its first president from 1936 until 1940 and was also a member and president of the Philadelphia Public Golfers Association.
In 1941 Gordon formed his own corporation, which was involved until 1945 in the seeding of military installations. For the next five years the firm constructed golf courses for Donald Ross and J. B. McGovern. From 1950 to 1973 Gordon designed and built courses on his own under the incorporated name of William F. Gordon Co. Most of his courses planned after 1953 were done in collaboration with his son David. He died in 1974 at his home in Abington, Pennsylvania."