[Garland Bayley]

Found him in Cornish and Whitten. He did alot of courses in Indiana. Are any of his courses significant? He developed and patented what I suppose is essentially the Cayman ball long before anyone thought would be useful. Got me to thinking if a company could make money fitting people to "couples" balls. I.e., you go get fitted with a ball that matches the distance your spouse hits the ball. Then you play competitively with your spouse. I suppose the divorce laywers would like that idea.

Diddel did the course that I used to walk with my dad before I began to play golf myself. I have fond memories of the course, and as I recall it, it was a fine layout.

[Joe Bausch]

Ah, brings back memories of growing up playing golf in Evansville, IN.  Diddel did three courses there that I've played hundreds of times each:  the muni Fendrich, the private Evansville Country Club (Ward Peyronnin, where are you?!), and the private Rolling Hills (in Newburgh, not far from Fazio's Victoria National and Doak's Quail Crossing).  ECC and RHCC are way better than Fendrich, but neither are considered architectural gems.

[Paul Saathoff]

Diddel has tons of stuff in Indiana.  Most of it is now run down public courses or munis unfortunately.  Growing up in Central Indiana, I played his courses quite a bit in High school matches and played a course of his just outside of muncie quite often during my years at Ball State University as the green fees were well suited for a poor hungry college kid (maybe something like 10 dollars to walk 18).  Tipton GC, Cardinal Hills, Honeywell (orig 9), Killbuck (The Old Generanl Motors course), Marion Elks, Elwood CC (orig 9, now called Cattails) are just some I can think of that I played growing up.  I was amazed when I started seriously researching GC Arch that a founding member of the ASGCA designed all of these courses I grew up playing. 

[David Whitmer]

Bill Diddel did a really nice 36-hole private facility here in Cincinnati called Kenwood Country Club. I believe it hosted a men's US Amateur (back in the 30s I think) and a women's US Open (maybe in the 60s?). It is widely considered one of the top courses in the area behind Camargo and Coldstream.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bad News: Seems like we just had a thread on this guy. 

Good News: I now know the H stands for Hickman, so I am a little smarter this morning than I was yesterday!

[Chris_Clouser]

Paul,

Sounds like you and I grew in the same area.  I've played all of those courses multiple times. 

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago on Diddel as Jeff mentioned.  Go to Ron Kern's site to find out most of the information about Diddel.  He was basically the virtuoso of golf in Indiana, the most dominant amateur for many years and also the primary golf architect in the state.  Quite an individual and character.

[John Burzynski]

Ya, I just started a thread on Diddel a few days ago...lots of information at his website:
http://billdiddel.com/


His courses (the few I have played) aren't that bad.  My home course is a Diddel course, Erskine Golf course in South Bend.  I am trying to play as many of his courses as possible as my travels take me around the Midwest (so this may take me a while)...kind of a quirky golf course architect pursuit, mostly out of curiousity. 

[Garland Bayley]

Bad News: Seems like we just had a thread on this guy. 

Good News: I now know the H stands for Hickman, so I am a little smarter this morning than I was yesterday!

Jeff,

You mean good news, because with new search function that thread is easy to locate.
http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,33893.0.html

[Garland Bayley]

John,

Thanks for the website pointer.

All,

Thanks for all the responses. The course I used to walk with my dad is Elks CC in Lewistown, MT. Over 40 years ago, never played the course, and can still remember 8 of the 9 holes. I seem to have misplaced one par 3 in my memory.

One of these years I am going to get back there, see if it was as good as I remember, and take pictures.

[John Burzynski]

Garland:

I have found the couple of courses that I have played that were designed by Diddel to be solid courses; nothing you would necessarily go "oh and ah" over, but solid courses you don't mind playing a few times, especially for a quick round.  Many seem to be muni's or country club courses in smaller towns or smaller cities.

[RSLivingston_III]

I have played Forest Lake, near Detroit, a few times and was very impressed by the greens and bunkering. Are his other course in Indiana very dramatic in and around the greens?

[Andy Troeger]

Ralph,
I would tend to say it depends on the course. Erskine for example has a great set of greens for a municipal course. The course is generally too short for the better player at 6000 yards, especially the front at 2800. The back nine is one heck of a nine holes of municipal golf. The greens are very good and varied and difficult to read for one who does not play there frequently. Those of us who play other courses frequently consider there to be "Erskine specialists" to a point who are very tough to beat there but on a longer course might struggle some.

Some of his other courses are a little more average around the greens, not necessarily bad but just pretty forgettable. I'm saying that because I don't remember much about most of the greens on his courses. Beechwood in Laporte has some interesting ones but its the routing of the course that makes that place. There are a few great green sites there though as well including the par fives 9 and 17.

[Dan Moore]

I had to dig in the archives for this.  One of Diddel's Chicago area courses. 

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28019.0.html

[ward peyronnin]

Mr. Diddle had quite an amateur playing career in Indiana and evidently was very available first half 20th century for golf design.

Evansville Country  club has not held up well. I don't think it can still be considered an original any longer after green committee and other undocumented renovations. Still a fun sporty course.

Fendrich is the quintessential simple muni and RHCC is a course forever ruined for me when i realized that at least 10 holes play down then up to semi blind greens but this was done late in Mr. Diddle's career and i am not sure how much he really was involved. Kenwood in Cinnci is an impressive course of his.

 

 

[Paul Saathoff]

Ralph,

His course in Anderson Indiana, Killbuck GC, has some great green complexes.  Really tricky breaks  and some tough bunkering as well.  I think the size and depth of the bunkers have probably been lost over time, and some of the FW bunkers have disapeared, but overall it's a great course.  The back 9 is really a great 9, still one of my favorites.  Killbuck is def the best of his courses I've played and is still maintained fairly well.  Marion Elks is another one with some interesting greens, pretty difficult actually.

Chris,

yeah I'm from Alexandria, a little small town between Anderson and Marion.  Growing up in central IN, I think we have probably both been exposed to a few "interesting" public and muni courses, there is definately no shortage of them... Ever played Brockway GC in Lapel?       

[wsmorrison]

Diddle redesigned a number of holes at Denver Country Club.

[Garland Bayley]

I had to dig in the archives for this.  One of Diddel's Chicago area courses. 

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28019.0.html

Thanks Dan. Interesting stuff.

[RJ_Daley]

I thought Bill Amick was the guy behind the Cayman ball.  Didn't Bill understudy with Diddel?  I have this stuff recorded somewhere, but no time to look it up now...  Bill had written on this website or the old Bravenet a few times several years ago. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

RJ,

"In the 1930s William H. Diddel, a golf course architect in Indianapolis, first conceived of a golf-like game to make starting golf easier and to shrink the size of courses.  Unfortunately Mr. Diddel was never able to obtain a reduced-distance ball which performed satisfactorily.  In the 1980s pro golfer Jack Nicklaus asked the MacGregor Golf Company to develop a ball for an small course his design company was laying out on Grand Cayman Island.  Troy Puckett, then MacGregor’s top golf equipment engineer, produced a suitable ball composed mainly of DuPont’s Surlyn.  Mr. Puckett has further improved that ball and his company now manufactures it as The Cayman ball". - W. Amick

[RSLivingston_III]

Ralph,
I would tend to say it depends on the course. Erskine for example has a great set of greens for a municipal course. The course is generally too short for the better player at 6000 yards, especially the front at 2800. The back nine is one heck of a nine holes of municipal golf. The greens are very good and varied and difficult to read for one who does not play there frequently. Those of us who play other courses frequently consider there to be "Erskine specialists" to a point who are very tough to beat there but on a longer course might struggle some.

Some of his other courses are a little more average around the greens, not necessarily bad but just pretty forgettable. I'm saying that because I don't remember much about most of the greens on his courses. Beechwood in Laporte has some interesting ones but its the routing of the course that makes that place. There are a few great green sites there though as well including the par fives 9 and 17.

It has been 6-7 years since playing Forest Lake CC but I recall a real need for some practice rounds to learn the greens. I recall the course was relatively short and the approach shots were very high value. If you didn't get it in the right place on the green it was an automatic three putt. The contours were pretty dramatic.

[David Sneddon]

Bill Diddel did a really nice 36-hole private facility here in Cincinnati called Kenwood Country Club. I believe it hosted a men's US Amateur (back in the 30s I think) and a women's US Open (maybe in the 60s?). It is widely considered one of the top courses in the area behind Camargo and Coldstream.

I've played Kenwood twice, at first glance you know it is a 1920's style course and you'd swear it was a Ross design.

Bunkering is superb, and the greens are typlical 20's design with a lot of internal contour.  The first round I played there, I thought the greens were way too fast for the contour, you just couldn't get the ball near the hole, no matter how soft you hit the putt.  Can't remember the hole #, but I tried a putt that was at least 4' above the hole, aimed 20 feet behing he hole and let the contour do the rest.  Think it ended up around 6' past.  My second round follwed a couple of days of rain, so thegreens were softer and more like a 9 stimp, which made them a delight to play.

Very enjoyable course, though.

David

[John Nixon]

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[Ian Andrew]

The good and bad from a Canadian perspective:

He was responsible for the 13th at Hamilton Golf & Country Club. This may be blasphemy to the Colt boys – but I think this was a huge improvement to the course – the hole is an excellent long par three with a wild and very interesting green.

He also proposed rebuilding all the greens at Scarboro Golf & Country Club (Canada’s only remaining Tilinghast) and that would have been a disaster since the greens are outstanding and still workl well today. His plan was for modernization - they have all the drawings in the archives.

[Garland Bayley]

Found a picture from the Bill Diddel course in Lewistown, MT, now called Pine Meadows Pictured is the par 4 first tee and hole, with the par 3 second running off to the right of the first green.

[Chris_Clouser]

That list of courses at the Diddel website seems suspiciously low.  I've read reports that he worked on over 200 courses.  So I wonder if there are several that are not on there, especially in Indiana.  I know the Elwood Country Club, now Cattails, and Brockway are two missing courses.  I have also played at a few others that cliam to be Diddel courses.  I think I might e-mail Ron Kern and see if he was the one that put that information together as it appears to be very similar to what is on his site. 

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