[TEPaul]

Adam:

My thoughts on the GCA of Wilson?

Well, first of all I'm definitely not going to get into my thoughts on his courses in the context of penal or even strategic  or penal vs strategic for the simple reason that discussions like that on this website can never seem to get off the definitional dime about what those terms mean to anyone, at least in degree.

But if one can generalize about Wilson and his career and style that began to come on-stream in the early to mid 1950s I would say one could pretty much categorize it or generalize about it as bigger in every way than anything that had come before it, in scale, distance (of tees, entire holes, greens, bunkers).

I think that was all driven by such factors as the necessity of almost instant inventiveness of things to do with the war needs and it was happening everywhere around us in the early fifties and on.

The enormous resources in not just manpower and machinery but the fast tracked inventiveness and production of the massive war effort that had been turned outward during the war was now being turning inward right into our country and its rejuvenating needs and desires. Everything was affected and it showed including in golf and golf construction and architecture.

Much more sophisticated construction machinery probably developed because of the war effort or its inventiveness was much larger and more efficient in creating entire holes and massive earthmoving from tee to greens which never much took place in golf architecture previously, at least nowhere near that extent.

They were moving way more earth even in flat Florida not because they had to but because they could so much more easily than ever before. That worked right into such things as more man-made water hazards and ponds and lakes that played right into much greater irrigation availablity and use that all played right into much easier real estate sales marketing.

Golf equipment was changing dramatically and it showed in the way particularly good golfers were playing the game. The aerial game was becoming the standard for the first time. Irrigation equipment was quickly improving and being used far more expansively and America was getting green (in color that is; certainly not in conservation as that word is being used today. Back then it was pretty much the polar opposite of resource conservation of any kind). Agronomy methods were changing quickly etc. The cart was getting born in golf and that added to size and scale and resource use.

Basically Americans were home and they were on the road bigtime with the top down with ultra cheap gas and big cars for the first time and things were just getting bigger and with more of everything.

Dick Wilson's architectural style showed this but so did RTJ's. They were basically the two big boys of golf course architecture in America then. They were the stars and they seemed to be the ones far more in demand by the big hitter clients, at least the ones my farther knew, than all the other architects who were coming into the business then---including most all that had been former foremen in the past.

I think Wilson's 1950s courses, at least some of them, are actually better or more interesting than his later stuff, at least for my taste. And that may've had something to do with his physical condition or it just may've had to do with the fact that his earlier stuff was when he was most creative or before he got too busy or drunk and sort of into some standard product line as many very busy architects seem to for probably obvious reasons.  

I personally saw Meadowbrook come into being construction-wise as I did Pine Tree about ten years later. There are some elements of Meadowbrook I find just fascinating like the size of some of those original greens---they were just enormous and strategically that was demanding in and of itself.

Wilson closed down on the approaches too compared to the way things had been, not entirely but in some very interesting ways such as not just narrower middles but a couple narrow entries that may've been more aesthetic stylizing than actually functional in play.

For Pine Tree, I do remember the take on it by my father (who was one of the founders) and his buddies. The course was really long and hard, really long tees, holes, real aerial demanding second shots etc. They loved it, they were proud of its difficulty and demands because that's what they wanted. The bunkers were large scale and broadly splayed out and the greens were ultra multi-forms with all kinds of interesting entry aerial shot values and angles.

I hate to say this, because I don't like it (and I think it's demeaning to much of the rest of the world and particularly our wartime Allies both actually and figuratively) but because I grew up in it I will say it;  when Wilson became big in architecture after the war this country was home, Americans basically felt THEY had just won a world war themselves, they were now much richer with their enormous resource and industrial and finance engines turned to peacetime production and they were about to take their act on the road internationally in all kinds of ways (not the least reason being George Marshall's "Plan" that was an incredibly effective market maker abroad for America).

One of the real historic or cultural ironies to me of the era of the fifties is it was also known by the term "The age of the Organization Man" and it was pretty conservative in many ways like our national politics. Maybe that was another result or vestibe of the indocrinating mentality of the war or military years, but it was definitely a time of incredible production and size and the realm of the possible for America; but even that "Organization Man" culture came crashing down 12-15 later when we must have overreached with our national self-image and the Social Revolution of the 60s set in creating something even the best psychiatrists had never before imagined.

Bob Crosby, you can check in and take over here any time as it seems like that was right about the time you were beginning to really cruise! And don't forget to tell all the young people on here how much easier it was to get stoned and get laid back then compared to today or perhaps any other time in recorded human history!

[Jeff_Mingay]

Chris

It is true that Dick Wilson completed the Walter Travis layout at Pennhills.  The Wilson back 9 follows the 1921 Travis layout perfectly--up to the 17th hole.  #s 1 and 18 were added by the club to accommodate their clubhouse that was constructed in 1937.  But, I am certain that Wilson used the 9th through 17th holes of Travis's layout.

Ed Homsey

Ed,

Interesting description of Penn Hills on the Penn Hills thread.

I'm not surprised to hear Wilson's holes don't match the style of Travis' holes. Reminds me of Marquette G&CC, in Michigan's UP. I can't recall who added the newest holes, which intermingle with the original Langford holes there, but it's also like playing two different courses... some times over consecutive holes though, at Marquette!

I think, if presented with a similar commission today, most thoughtful contemporary architects would try to match the new holes with the old. This would certainly make for a better overall product, I think.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

What was Dick Wilson's golf game like? Was he, like your dad and his buddies, a good player?

[TEPaul]

Billsteele;

You know I want to thank you for posting this article about Wilson and this thread. He and his architecture certainly has been talked about on here over the years but this thread seems different somehow.

And I would also like to say that what really makes me sad is not the constant mention of his alcoholism almost every time his name is mentioned (I believe that is much more common today than it used to be which I will try to explain later) but because his architecture and its style seems to always be sort of criticized on here probably because he just gets lumped into some era (generally referred to on here pejoratively as the "Modern" era of Architecture) which most probably essentially look at as the 3-4 decades after the WW2 years.

Wilson and what he did was better than to get treated that way even by implication. I sort of fell into looking at that era that way myself and probably because I've always been on here so much but I'm changing my own mind about that now and I look at what he did differently. Frankly the same is true for me with some of RTJ's courses. Perhaps my best success in golf was at RTJ's  London Hunt Club in London Ontario. I hadn't been there in about a decade but I went back up there about two years ago and played it and it's a wonderful course that puts a ton of thought pressure and challenge on you to figure out intelligent strategies particularly with your approach shots.

With the way the world turns it would not surprise me if a renaissance of Wilson et al's style comes back around some day. I doubt I'll be alive to see it but I bet some of the young ones on here will be!  

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
What was Dick Wilson's golf game like? Was he, like your dad and his buddies, a good player?"

Jeff:

I have no idea about that. I've never heard a thing about that. Pete Dye sure ought to know though. I"m pretty sure my Dad didn't play with him or much, at least he never mentioned that. He just used to talk about him from time to time because they all liked his architecture and I'm afraid it must've also meant they went drinking together because Dick Wilson lived down there around Delray.

I thought I'd never met Wilson (I didn't live there in those years I just used to go down there about half a dozen times a year for a few weeks each) but looking at his photo in that article I think I do remember seeing him. There was a very good friend of my Dad named Truman Connell who was a really good player and a great guy and I think when I was young I would occassionally get him mixed up with Wilson. I didn't play golf in my younger years and so all my father's golf friends sort of blurred together for me including Armour which today I find incredible.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

You bring up an interesting point about certain people's perception of post-World War II golf architecture. I've thought a lot about this, too, over recent years... possible misunderstanding of the works of Dick Wilson and Robert Trent Jones in particular (specifically their earilest and best stuff, I'm thinking).

This is subject matter I'd like to delve into a bit more myself.

[Chris_Blakely]

Chris

It is true that Dick Wilson completed the Walter Travis layout at Pennhills.  The Wilson back 9 follows the 1921 Travis layout perfectly--up to the 17th hole.  #s 1 and 18 were added by the club to accommodate their clubhouse that was constructed in 1937.  But, I am certain that Wilson used the 9th through 17th holes of Travis's layout.

Ed Homsey

Ed,

Interesting description of Penn Hills on the Penn Hills thread.

I'm not surprised to hear Wilson's holes don't match the style of Travis' holes. Reminds me of Marquette G&CC, in Michigan's UP. I can't recall who added the newest holes, which intermingle with the original Langford holes there, but it's also like playing two different courses... some times over consecutive holes though, at Marquette!

I think, if presented with a similar commission today, most thoughtful contemporary architects would try to match the new holes with the old. This would certainly make for a better overall product, I think.

Daivd Gill added the new holes at Marquette in the UP.

Chris

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

I agree, I think we should all delve into it more, particularly some of their work of say the mid-fifties. I think the place to start and the way to start is to recognize how different it really was in so many ways from most everything that came before it (before WW2) and then to begin to look into all the extraneous and ancillary reasons why.

There is one other thing from that era for me, Jeff, that is still very clear and very foremost in my recollections of that time and that was some of the building architecture, particularly down there. It was commonly referred to as simply "Modern" architecture and it is not something I ever want to look into again or feel the need to reanalyze. I think it may've been the absolute low point in the entire history of building architecture and if it never enjoys a renaissance at any time in the future I think that would be a very good thing.  

[Bill_McBride]

Thanks for the link, Bill. Interesting article.

How good is Cog Hill No. 4? For real.

Pretty good from the couple of times I played there.  One of the things I remember - between rainstorms - is the greens were mostly shamrock shaped, with lobes and deep bunkers between.  This effectively made what seemed like pretty large greens effectively play pretty small.  If you weren't hitting accurate approach shots, you were down in those bunkers a lot.

There's a good short par 4 #10 that would be very easy if the huge tree on the left front of the green were to disappear.  I haven't been there in 20 years so don't know if it is still there.  I liked the holes that usually show up on TV, #13 on in.  Good mix including a short par 5 #15 and three solid par 4 finishing holes.

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

I guess I didn't read that article closely enough because in it Pete Dye said Wilson was a good player and believe me if Pete said he was a good player, he was a good player.

Bill McBride:

Another thing I noticed in that article is how Wilson said he thought that RTJ gave the golfer the perception of too many straight lines and good architecture should never do that. That got me thinking about many of the Wilson greens I know here and there and even if they might be really big they often don't look that way for various reasons to the approaching golfer. Maybe he had a way of sort of hiding it from the golfer via angles and some simple elevations on the tops of greenside bunkers or whatever. But from some of the RTJ greens I know like at London Hunt it is the same thing. I have absolutely never seen a green from either of those guys like say a big long and wide Biarritz with its massive straight down the line orientation. Or even a green like Macdonald's Double Plateau that even if it has those plateaus the entire green is still always pretty much oriented right down the line of play.

[Mark Smolens]

Thanks for the link, Bill. Interesting article.

How good is Cog Hill No. 4? For real.

Pretty good from the couple of times I played there.  One of the things I remember - between rainstorms - is the greens were mostly shamrock shaped, with lobes and deep bunkers between.  This effectively made what seemed like pretty large greens effectively play pretty small.  If you weren't hitting accurate approach shots, you were down in those bunkers a lot.

There's a good short par 4 #10 that would be very easy if the huge tree on the left front of the green were to disappear.  I haven't been there in 20 years so don't know if it is still there.  I liked the holes that usually show up on TV, #13 on in.  Good mix including a short par 5 #15 and three solid par 4 finishing holes.

Bill, the huge tree on 10 was hit by lightning a few years ago.  In the new configuration, Rees has added a bunch (3 or 4?) of deep bunkers down and around the right side of the fwy.  They've also added 3 or 4 large new tees in the area of the former giant.  Tho I haven't been around the entire course, from what I've seen (Frank Jemsek drove us around the back nine last fall), Dubs will be much harder than it already was for us chops.  It of course remains to be seen how much harder it will play for the guys with their names on their bags. . .

[Greg Chambers]

TEPaul,

I once asked an architect friend of mine how he intended for his designs to hold up against advancing technology, without having to add distance to the course.  His explanation was for greens to be oriented at angles to the line of play, creating an emphasis on accuracy and distance control on approach shots, no matter how short a club in hand.  Maybe Mr. Wilson was aware of this strategy way back then, thinking his designs would hold up knowing techno advances in the game were imminent.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Seems I skimmed over Pete Dye talking about Dick Wilson the golfer, too, Tom!

As for "Modern" architecture, I've been reading an anthology of writings by legendary architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable, recently. There's a lot of correlation between building architecture and golf architecture throughout different eras, for sure. It's pretty amazing actually.

My sense is, following some research, we may come to realize (if we already haven't) that there are indeed glaring similarities between building and golf architecture in the 1950 through, say, 1990 period, as things relate to enduring art.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

You are on a roll. I wouldn't dare jump in.

I would just note that it is hard to appreciate today the devastating impact of The GD and WWII on our fathers' generation. They saw family and friends wiped out financially and then die in the war. My father has never been willing to talk about it. And I've pushed him hard several times.

Jeff -

Agreed. There are striking parallels between building and golf architecture in the 1950's. Which suggests a pervasive mindset (see my comment above). I'm just not sure how best to decribe that mindset, however. For me it would in some ways be akin to describing my father. Which is never an easy thing for a son to do.

Bob

[Jeff_Mingay]

Bob,

I know what you mean, but there are ways to describe parallels in building architecture (and other things) during the Post-WWII era and golf architecture. I need to figure out how!

This is of great interest to me.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff,

I used to say that to Tom MacWood all the time, and recently to TePaul.  Basically, after WWII, and for a lot of reasons bigger than the golf cousres, America wanted a new beginning (a real one, not the kind that Obama and every other President has promised) and it reflected in all types of design.

After about 20 years of depression and war, its easy to see why they wanted a new look.  Now, golf club atlas basically just trashes a whole generation for changing golden age classics.  Basically, I can understand how my parents and others like them embraced modernism, because it truly must have seemed like a whole new world out there.

Could it be we are nostalgic for Golden Age architecture because we don't like looking forward right now?  Its more complicated than I can explain, but tastes simply change, and I haven't felt it fair to make a blanket statement and call the tastes of the 50's-60's bad.

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

From the golf architecture side, I've always thought you begin with RTJ's marketing pitch. He was going to build new courses that were all in front of you, inexpensive to construct, inexpensive to maintain and hard to par. It was a simple, no frills approach and RTJ made a fortune with it. He also built some very good courses.

That generation had seen it all. They wanted basic, simple, sturdy stuff with clean, unambiguous lines. The past (including the Golden Age) was the enemy. It had treated them badly. They wanted to move on. No filligree bunker edges, no flukey, funky clever designs. They wanted things boiled down to the basics. They didn't trust anything else. (Funnny, but as I type I feel like I am doing my father's voice.)

Bob  

[Jeff_Mingay]

Jeff,

We're getting at the same thing here.

In fact, I wrote an essay that appears in one of Paul Daley's Golf Architecture, A Worldwide Perspective volumes titled "Preserving the World's Great Golf Courses", which argues the importance of embracing, restoring and preserving different styles of golf architecture, simply because its this type of variety which makes golf so much more interesting and attractive than so many other sports.

I think (in many cases) the works of Wilson, Trent Jones and other golf architects of the post-World War II era should be studied, analyzed, restored and preserved in the same manner in which restoration of Ross, Tillinghast, Mackenzie, Flynn, Thompson, et al courses is so passionately promoted, here. 

[Bill_McBride]

Jeff:

I guess I didn't read that article closely enough because in it Pete Dye said Wilson was a good player and believe me if Pete said he was a good player, he was a good player.

Bill McBride:

Another thing I noticed in that article is how Wilson said he thought that RTJ gave the golfer the perception of too many straight lines and good architecture should never do that. That got me thinking about many of the Wilson greens I know here and there and even if they might be really big they often don't look that way for various reasons to the approaching golfer. Maybe he had a way of sort of hiding it from the golfer via angles and some simple elevations on the tops of greenside bunkers or whatever. But from some of the RTJ greens I know like at London Hunt it is the same thing. I have absolutely never seen a green from either of those guys like say a big long and wide Biarritz with its massive straight down the line orientation. Or even a green like Macdonald's Double Plateau that even if it has those plateaus the entire green is still always pretty much oriented right down the line of play.

Back in the days before Raymond Floyd botched the Blue Course at Doral  , I remember on several holes there standing out in the fairway, in the middle of the fricking fairway, just being able to see the top half of the flagstick because Dick Wilson had somehow managed to make the green invisible with the bunkering.    Six or seven of the greens it looked like a lone flagstick sticking up out of sand!  Very clever use of those top lines and overlapping bunkers.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Imagine, there's ONE Robert Trent Jones course reviewed by our esteemed friend, Ran Morrissett, here, at this web site... and, NOT A SINGLE Dick Wilson course.

Interesting 

[Bill_McBride]

Perhaps little known in America is that Wilson designed the back nine at Metropolitan in Melbourne when the old nine was lost to a government school project in the late fifties.
The Australian Women's Open is there next week.

Mike, I got a look at Metropolitan when it was on TV here in the US a few years ago.  I was really taken with the way the bunkers cut right into the green surfaces, it was a very dramatic and interesting style.  Did Wilson do the same on the back nine?

Thanks.

[Jeff_Mingay]

And, Mike C., further to Bill's post above, didn't Wilson do some additional "consulting" with other clubs during his visit to Australia?

I remember reading about his trip Down Under somewhere, and it sounded kinda like a modern-day version of Mackenzie's visit to Oz... if you get what I'm trying to say.

[Bill_McBride]

And, Mike C., further to Bill's post above, didn't Wilson do some additional "consulting" with other clubs during his visit to Australia?

I remember reading about his trip Down Under somewhere, and it sounded kinda like a modern-day version of Mackenzie's visit to Oz... if you get what I'm trying to say.

A research trip to Australia is definitely in order!  Now if that damned economy would just sort itself out....

[Anthony Gray]

Tom,

Your stories never cease to amaze me!

Forget the Flynn book, I'm waiting for your autobiography 

 I second that.There's a guaranteed 1500 buyers right here.

  You can't make that stuff up!! Great story.

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

Forget the Flynn book!?!?

No way! Miracle of miracles----I actually started the editing process today after Wayne taught me how to use a really cool application editing "Tool" tool. There's so much red lettering on the first page it looks like a Goll-danged gangland murder crime scene!! 



"You can't make that stuff up!! Great story."

I guess you mean the dog shit on the dirty laundry and leash in the livingroom story. No, that's right, that one is true and would be pretty hard to dream up.

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