Willie Fernie

[T_MacWood]

Having been involved in the design or redesign of Troon, Turnberry, Southerndown, Skegness, Berwick on Tweed and Felixstowe among others should Willie Fernie be better known? He was one of the busiest architects at the turn of the century.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom, can you be more specific? Which ones were did he design and which were redesigns and to what extent?

[T_MacWood]

Troon (major redesign), Troon Portland (design), Tunrberry (design). Skegness (redesign), Southerndown (design), Berwick on Tweed (design), Aldeburgh (design), Shiskine-Blackwaterfoot (design) and Felixstowe (redesign). He also designed courses in Ireland, France and Belgium.

[Noel Freeman]

There are few vestiges of Fernie at Southerndown although a few of the holes remain as he designed them.. From our research the best holes were Colt there.. Then again Paul Turner is bias!

[SPDB]

Tom - Didn't Fernie also design a club in Belgium? (Spa?). Also Dumfries & Galloway.

Conceding that, as Head Pro, Fernie probably tinkered, how much do you think can be credited to him, and how much to Braid?

[Chris Moore]

I thought Troon Portland was a Mackenzie course.

[T_MacWood]

Chris
MacKenzie remodeled Fernie's Troon Portland in the 20s.

Sean
Fernie designed a new golf course for the King of the Belgiums at his Royal Chateau d'Ardenne in the forest of the same name. I think its still there.

I'm not sure precisely what Braid did at Troon. I do know Fernie was the pro there for 37 years (1887-1924) and Braids work was in 1923.

Fernie also designed courses at Glasgow (Erskine), Cardross, Troon Municipal, Gairloch (Ross-shire), Caldwell House, Colwall (Hertfordhsire) and Danaghadee (County Down). I wrote above that he redesigned Skegness, he actually designed new course there.

Noel
1905 was an extraordinary year in golf. The popularity of the game exploded and it was also a breakthrough year in golf architecture with unheard of amounts of money being spent on new golf courses. The most important courses that year: Queens Park (Taylor), the new Tooting Bec (Park), the new North Berwick (Braid & Sayers), Princes (Hutchings et al), Turnberry (Fernie) and Southerndown (Fernie).

Fowler added bunkers to Sountherndown in 1908; I'm not sure exactly what Park and Colt did in 1913 and 1919. Darwin had a very nice write up on the course in his 1910 book on British golf courses.

[Marty Bonnar]

"Willie Fernie, whom I saw with my own eyes - he was my earliest hero when I played as a tiny boy at Felixstowe - was a beautiful, easy and graceful golfer, with an air of almost insolent confidence. I see him very plainly coming out of his shop by the Martello tower (a little paradise of pitch and cobbler's wax and divine scents), a white apron round his waist, a shiny-peaked yachting cap set rakishly on his head, in his hand a half-finished driver which he waggles lovingly and knowingly".

...why Bernard Darwin is the BEST!

FBD.

[SPDB]

Tom - What's interesting is that Fernie was from Fife and spent the majority of his life associated with Troon, yet the majority of his original work (save for Turnberry, Seacroft, Arbroath and maybe some others) appears to be inland - in addition to the ones you note, he also did Strathaven, Thornhill, Pitlochry and Strathendrick, Callander and others.

Might Fernie garner another look with respect to the development of inland and/or parkland golf?

Is Fernie responsible for the current routing of Troon?

[Alfie]

Tom,

How could you exclude Fernie's greatest masterpiece at Abington, 1892 ? Later known as Arbory Braes  
He also laid out another 9 holer at nearby Roberton village (possibly on the same day ! ?)

Alfie

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Now we've got an expert!  Listen to all Alfie has to say and dwell on it.

[T_MacWood]

Alfie
My bad.

The guy was very active. My guess is there are more out there he designed we don't know about. Another one is Whitsand Bay in Cornwall...the old photos I've seen are pretty cool.

Sean
I think he did a pretty good mix of inland and seaside. From what I understand Braid's work at Troon involved new bunkering, if that is the case the routing would be Fernie's.

If not a book at least a chapter....you rarely see his name mentioned at all.

[Alfie]

Mark,

Good to hear from you. Thanks for the compliment but I'm afraid I never got round to researching Fernie as much as I should have ! I did have a contact in the US who was gathering Fernie info, but sadly passed away and I don't know what happened to his research ?

Fernie was certainly a busy man through the 1890's when the inland game took off in a big way. He also made recomendations for Biggar (Langlees) in 1896 which were considered too expensive by the club. I think he also had a hand in the early layouts at Lanark pre 1900, although I'm not entirely sure.

He was regarded as a very "stylish" player and highly sought after for his teaching skills.

Hope the voice is still in good shape, Mark.

Alfie

[Alfie]

Tom said - "I'm not sure about a book but at least a chapter....you rarely see his name mentioned at all."

Absolutely right Tom. When I did make a half hearted attempt to research him a couple of years back I found it impossible to find much of interest and gave up.

I for one, think he deserves to be better recognised for his contributions to the sport....but then, I am biased towards him.

Alfie

[SPDB]

Tom - What would you say is the ratio of links to inland where Fernie worked? It appears that a majority were inland, and that Fernie actively capitalized on that trend as Alfie notes. Why is that? Fernie was no doubt a respected professional, but why wasn't he given more work on the coasts?

What are his original links? Turnberry, Shiskine, Seacroft (Skegness?), Felixstowe and Arbroath. Southerndown (links?) Did he have any contribution to Hunstanton, or was that only George Fernie?

The Club history of Royal Troon is shockingly uninformative on the development of the course, but I would be curious who was responsible for the current course - Fernie, Braid or Chs. Hunter.

It does contain a reference that Fernie had been asked to design a course in Phoenix Park, which would seem a plum assignment due to its location.


P.S. Alfie - When I wrote my last post, I had planned to reference Arbory Brae.

[T_MacWood]

Sean
You are probably right, he did more inland courses, but he did his fair share of seaside courses: Turnberry, Troon, Troon Portland, Shiskine, Seacroft, Felixstowe, Arbroath, Southerndown, Le Touquet, Goswick, Whitsand Bay and Donaghadee. There weren't too many architects involved in more seaside designs.

I think Hunter was the original architect of Troon in the 1870s and Fernie oversaw the course in its formative years. According to the book on the courses of Braid he rebunkered it in 1926. I know a painting of the 'Postage Stamp' is featured in Darwin's in 1910 book on British courses.