10 Things You Most Likely Don’t Know About Tilly
1. It is generally known that Tilly spent almost 6 weeks in San Antonio from the last week of September to the first week of November 1915 during which he designed, laid out & began the construction of Brackenridge Park, the Funston Moore course at Ft. Sam Houston and the redesign of San Antonio CC. What most don’t know is that he wrote a series of articles for the San Antonio Light newspaper during early October with the last one appearing on the 9th about the Philadelphia Phillies who were about to meet the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.
2. Tilly took his last drink of alcohol in 1927 after his physician at the Mayo Clinic told him that he had dangerously high blood pressure.
3. Tilly did not come back to his Harrington Park estate in the middle of 1936 during his PGA Course Consultation tour to find a federal tax sale in progress. Tilly wrote earlier that summer that he was heading back to Harrington Park to “close up his beloved home for good.” The house and property would be foreclosed on in 1938, and not on Tilly, but on the original owner from whom Tilly had purchased it in 1930 and who had failed to pay his own mortgage and taxes on it. Contrary to what has been mistakenly written by some in the past, not a single one of Tilly’s personal belongings were sold because of this.
4. Following up on the above, Tilly was not financially destitute and penniless during the Depression. If that was the case he could not have bought the Harrington Park estate in 1930 nor could he have paid for and built a brand new house next door for the Worden’s; his daughter, her husband and their children. So with very little golf architectural work going on, where did he get his money on which to live? There were two main sources: he sold a great deal of his personal antiques and collectibles during this time and actually used a portion of the Harrington Park home as an antiques store, something which he had done with his wife Lillian since they first began renting it in 1927. The second one was the Tillinghast Rubber Goods Co. that his father, B.C. Tillinghast, had started ca. 1874. When B.C. died in 1918, ownership was transferred to Tilly. His mother and wife ran it until his mother died and then Tilly’s wife Lillian ran it until she finally closed the doors of the last store in the mid-1940s, several years after Tilly died. Although this business suffered along with all others of the time, it provide them with a steady, though small, income.
5. Tilly was NOT an only child. Benjamin A. Tillinghast, first child of BC & Lavinia Tillinghast, would die of an undisclosed illness before Tilly was born. This may provide the reasons behind Lavinia’s being referred to as “dour” and why his parents spoiled Tilly in everything.
6. On the registration card for the military draft that he signed 9/7/1918, under the column “Present Occupation” Tilly wrote “Rubber Merchant” with his employer being the “Tillinghast Rubber Goods Co.”
7. Tilly kept a summer home in Shawnee-on-Delaware from ca.1902 until 1910. He was a neighbor of Charles Worthington and the two became good friends with Tilly playing golf on the course that Worthington built on his estate. This friendship is what led to Worthington hiring Tilly to design the Shawnee CC course in 1909, completing its construction in 1911 when it opened for play in May. Tilly sold his summer home in 1910 to Worthington’s wife who turned it into a school and store for local area Indian potters to learn and practice their craft.
8. Ben Hogan spent time with Tilly at his Harrington Park home in the early 1930s to work on his golf swing. During these sessions, Tilly, an ardent camera fanatic, made home movies of Hogan’s swing which he developed in his basement dark room. The two of them would then examine the swing together frame-by-frame. These films were lost forever in 1952 when a fire destroyed the barn on the Brown’s farm where all of his effects including his entire collection of personal drawings and documents from his years as an architect, as well as photographs, films, etc… were destroyed. This might very well be the most tragic of all fires involving golf course architecture ever…
9. Tilly invented “soft spikes” for use as golf shoes in 1905. These were marketed under the name “Suction Grip.” They were described as a “rubber grip attachment to the soles of shoes in order to prevent slipping… As there is no metal surface exposed the grips can be worn with comfort anywhere. Many clubs prohibit the wearing of spiked shoes in the club houses as they mar the hardwood floors… Green committees know by experience how bob nails, when worn by golfers who make a practice of twisting around after raising a putt, roughen the surface of good greens. No possible damage can be done to a green by such a pernicious habit if one wears rubber soled shoes.”
10. Many know that after Tilly died on 5/19/1942 he was cremated. What most don’t know is that only a portion of his ashes were sprinkled into the Wissahickon nearby the Philadelphia Cricket Club. The majority were interred on 7/15/1942 at the Cedar Hill cemetery. Earlier this year a generous member of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, after a visit to the grave site where he found the old head stone greatly deteriorated, honored Tilly and his family by having the stone restored as a gift to them.