Karl,
I commend you, and Brett, for all your efforts. Can I ask you though, as well as listing where WP jnr has been, are you also compiling what he has done at each course and whether any of his work remains ? From a cursory run through of the courses listed in the OP it is clear that quite a few are not original WP designs and have had significant alterations after he was there. It would be good to record that.
From experience, I find it frustrating that over here in the UK and in particular in Scotland, any course that Braid consulted on gets tagged a Braid when his input might have been minimal. Anyway, apologies for whinging and well done on your work.
Niall
ps. Peter Lewis is of the opinion that the Fernie/Park footage is the earliest footage of professionals playing golf.
Niall,
I appreciate the comments. I have not personally tried to compile a list of Willie Park’s work at each course. It would be a very large undertaking suited for a Society. Willie Park is probably the most prolific international golf architect without a Golf Society, at least in the United States.
The reason I enjoy participating in this thread is the collaborative effort from people all over the world. No one is really an expert on Willie Park and we can all learn together from each others experiences and stories. I think Ben initially tried to do as you suggested when he started this thread, but as the list grew larger, the details became smaller. Mungo noted that he was more interested in the whereabouts of a Willie Park, than the actual work he performed.
I think anyone that wants to take on the task of analyzing each course can start with this thread. Several of his courses have been broken down into more detail. I also hear your argument concerning Braid. Willie Park did not get the same treatment as Braid or Ross. There are courses like CC of New Bedford, where we hadn’t re-discovered the Park connection until very recently which brings up one more point.
Some of the other golf societies jumped the gun on their architect and gave them credit for many courses they had no involvement in. They would find one article mentioning the course and speculate their architect built it. With this thread, it’s nice to see the data being gathered before it’s analyzed prematurely. It’s also nice to see that with Park you don’t have to make as many corrections to the list as you do additions. I agree a list should be compiled, but it will take a group effort from people in every region Park built a golf course.
Bret