One of the most important things for any golfer to know is distance to target. The competent golfer needs, with as great an accuracy as possible, to determine how far away his ball lies from a green, or to the spot in the fairway he wants to advance it to, or the distance he must traverse in order to avoid the hazards in front of him. Trees are the golfer’s friend in determining distance as they provide needed perspective. Tillinghast recognized this, writing that, “There is no doubt that a solitary tree… renders the judgment of distance very easy.” The trick to great course design is in using trees as groups to properly frame holes without giving away too much helpful information.
Tilly once wrote that, “Our eyes, accustomed to the sight of many trees, rather accustom themselves to distances when one tree stands out prominently as a guide. This is the best explanation I can offer. Without a doubt many advance more subtle reasons, but the fact remains – a lone tree, standing near the end of a shot, makes the distance much easier to gauge, particularly if it be in full view… Some of the most attractive holes have been made through wooded tracts, but with many trees on either side of the fairway the guiding virtue of solitary trees is not in evidence.”
The use of trees in planning a hole is one of the most effective means that an architect may employ to twist a fairway, especially if he does not want to use a hazard as a challenge to the player.
Tilly once drew a sketch to show the proper way to plan a fairway through the woods. In doing so he noted that “fairways should be rather irregular in shape and not like bowling alleys extending through the woods.”
Also shown in this sketch is how Tilly would design open areas on either side of the fairway. These would make it easy to find and play a ball that was hooked or sliced, allowing the player an ability to get back to the fairway despite being blocked by the trees if he would attempt a shot to the green.
Trees are often integral to a golf course, and the wholesale removal of them can be a great mistake. He wrote how important it was to carefully consider how to go about their removal, saying, “Certainly the irregular clearing of trees deserves more than a passing thought… let it be said that money spent on expert care of the club’s fine trees is money well spent. If the budget must be cut, spare that set aside for the trees…”
In addition to trees that framed holes on a course, Tillinghast recognized that, “… it must be borne in mind that the inland courses of America are an overwhelming majority and it is to the fine specimen trees, peculiar to the various localities, that we may for a moment direct our thought. Whenever one of the fine old fellows rears his branches in
solitary splendor it immediately occurs to the architect that here is something that needs nothing except a whole lot of letting alone.”
He made every effort to protect trees that he felt were beautiful and important, even going so far as designing holes around them. “It has been mentioned that every effort is directed to the swinging of holes, not only to save fine specimen trees, but to make them serve a definite purpose in the playing of the game. But often we find a large copse or a thick forest which must be penetrated. Those who grieve because of this necessity do not realize fully that opening up the fairway will not be a program of indiscriminate destruction but rather a painstaking effort to cut through in such a manner as to bring to view the best trees which long have been hidden away among unlovely companions. Woods are like communities and trees are like men. In each there are a lot of common nuisances and parasites that are best out of the picture altogether. In every forest you will find some rare old trees, oaks and elms, sycamores and hickories that have been hidden away from sight for many years with a tangle of nondescripts all about them. These we save, of course, as much as possible.”
Tillinghast loved trees on a golf course. “An honest old tree can be very sympathetic and comforting if the golfer will take the time to look into its serenely complacent face and feel that way about it.” There was, however, one exception.
In February of 1931, Tilly wrote an article in Golf Illustrated titled, “Trees on the Golf Course.” He wrote how, “More than twenty years ago, Mr. Chandler Egan won the championship of the United States at Baltusrol. I played him in the first round of that tournament and at the end of the eleventh enjoyed a lead of one hole. After poor drives to the twelfth it looked for a brief moment as though my lead might go to two for my ball rested in the fairway within a short pitch to the green, while Mr. Egan had unleashed an unholy hook into a real jungle. How he ever got a club to that ball, or what manner of club it was, matters not, but that ball came out plenty. It would have continued its mad flight for a lot more than the player had hoped had it not come into violent contact with a lone tree, which grew immediately by the side of the green for no good purpose. After sampling nearly every branch of that tree for a good place to alight, the ball finally decided on a nice spot on the green itself very close to the cup. The birdie three evened the match which it had looked like two down a moment before. In memory that tree was coupled with one of my life’s darkest moments. Some years later, I had been retained by Baltusrol to remodel the course and extend it to its present thirty-six holes. One day the late Mr. Louis Keller, then of the Green Committee, heard the sound of axes eating into a half dead tree and hurried over to investigate. Nearby he found their golf architect looking on and smiling contentedly as he stood on the old twelfth green.”