Tilly, in writing about the building of Shawnee wrote:
“Mr. A.W. Tillinghast [writing about himself in the third person as he often did], who for the past year has devoted most of his time to the work on the new course of the Shawnee Country Club, tells of a remarkable happening there which illustrates the very remarkable quality of the soil so far inland. Eleven of the holes are located on the Island of Shawna. Late last fall a number of guarding pits were dug about the greens, located at one end of the island. Water came on before sand could be dug for them. When the ice cleared from the river this spring, Mr. Tillinghast visited the island to find out how it had wintered. Greatly to his amazement he found all his new pits filled with fine white sand. Nature had been working for him. The winter winds had blown the sand into the pits to a depth of two feet.”
Of the greatest irony then is how severe storms has done damage in the millions of dollars in the last few years to both the golf course and the Inn.
Yet maybe the man upstairs had simply been sending a message. Tilly's original 18 holes have all but been replaced by what became 27. Now the owners are giving strong consideration to rebuilding and restoring it to 18 holes only... the 18 that Tilly designed...