Wogan family in New England

[mark chalfant]

Ive often enjoyed reading Brad Tufts profile of Tedesco, which is a Wogan  design north   of Boston. What are some other Wogan courses worthy of study. Are there central  tenets / faeatures   that often occur  on their courses ?

thanks

[Ray Richard]

Phil Wogan learned the business from his father Skip Wogan who had some connection with Donald Ross. Phil is in his 80’s now and he is association with George Sargent. His courses are New England style,user friendly with subtle bunkering, big greens and wide fairways.

I like Cocheco Country Club in Dover New Hampshire (Back nine) and Halifax Country Club in Massachusetts.

[Brad Tufts]

Thanks for the compliment Mark...I do need to update that profile one of these days, as some of the pics are not great, and I know more about the background of the course now.

Tedesco was designed by Eugene "Skip" Wogan back in the teens, a modernization of the original rudimentary golf course.  Tedesco once had 36 holes on its property, with the main 18 (albeit a bit different than today's 18) originally by Wogan, a nine built by members that closed in 1953 after being open to the public for over 10 years, and a NLE nine out beyond our current back nine designed by Wayne Stiles.

The current 18 is a melding of the original Wogan layout and renovations by Stiles as he was building the "3rd nine" that no longer exists.  A couple holes on today's course are from the NLE Stiles 9.  Hole #12 at Tedesco was "designed" by Donald Ross in the 20s on a short consulting visit, as he suggested the interesting greensite that is there today.

Skip Wogan only designed several courses in his design career, most notably Tedesco, Blue Hill CC in Milton, and Webhannet in southern Maine.  He was the longtime club pro at Essex CC right after Donald Ross, and likely learned the craft (or a good approximation of the craft) from the master.  He is probably most well-known in New England as the founder of the NEPGA, and his development of the most common tournament scoreboard system used today.

His son Phil Wogan has partnered with George Sargent for years, and I was fortunate to meet with him (Phil) once, and hear his recollections of Ross from when he was a young man.  Wogan-Sargent courses are not flashy, they are utilitarian, and their careers have likely been shaped by competition with Cornish (and sometimes Silva), the other New England duo designing courses in the area over the past 40 years.  I would guess that W/S have not gotten as many high-profile projects as Cornish, Silva, or Cornish-Silva, but the courses both groups built from 1960-1990 appear much the same in style.

I would say Wogan's style does not have many consistent features, but it generally could be classified as a Northeastern representation of low-to-medium budget 60s-80s design.  His courses are solid and fair, but often have a hole or two that appear shoehorned in.

The courses of Skip Wogan and Stiles have often been mistaken for Donald Ross designs, but you would be hard pressed to see "Ross features" in a Wogan/Sargent design beyond DR and Wogan's consistent use of well-proven design ideas.

[Sean Leary]

I was fortunate enough to play Tedesco with Brad this summer, and it is a very interesting, fun golf course.  Sneaky hard too....

[Mike Sweeney]

Sankaty Head: http://www.golfoncapecod.com/Summ04CourseReview1.php

Skip Wogan, the renowned architect who apprenticed with Donald Ross early in his career on the North Shore, is sometimes listed as Sankaty's designer, in 1932, but there is no doubt Armstrong deserves the lion's share of credit for the course, while Wogan probably added its finishing touches. In fact, Armstrong and Gray had decided they didn't want to muck up the place with sand bunkers and such for at least the first two years, maybe to learn through regular play where the best bunker locations would be, and that's probably where Wogan came in. Gray had considered hiring Walter Travis for the job, but he was too expensive.

______________________________________________

Webhannet: Not as good as advertised by our guide in Maine compared to the local Travis' Cape Arundle, but a pretty spot to play a short New England style golf course.

[Brad Tufts]

Mike,

Interesting stuff about Sankaty.  I have yet to get out there, but I plan to take advantage of the off-season play one of these Octobers...I've heard it's great (almost Scottish) fun when the volume of wind and weather is turned up.

I would agree about Webhannet too.  I specifically went up there to play b/c of the Skip Wogan connection, and while not bad by any stretch, WH is tight, confined, and short.  And you can hear the ocean right nearby but never see it!!

[Jason Thurman]

I spent last week playing in the Blue Hill Member-Guest. And I have to say I enjoyed it, and it's not just because of the putt on 17 set up by the shot on 16 and the putt on 3 and the putt on 2 and the shot on 12 and those two shots on 9 and that time that Greg knocked it on the green on 18 in two for the first time and got nowhere near the most excited he got all weekend.


I found wide corridors, big and strategically placed bunkers, and a whole lot of trouble without a whole lot of yardage or opportunity for lost balls. The greens were pretty excellent too, and a lot of the members are all talking about how they want to take out a lot more trees after they took out a bunch around 2 last year.


It was playing bouncy and fast when we arrived, and the sporty nature of the course shined through with some good scoring. There's a lot of slope in the landing zones, and driver is almost always an option but often not the best one. But holes like the opening trio and the 9th and 11th and 14th and 18th really encourage a full shoulder turn. I learned that it's a fun course to play a strong round on, and we all learned on Friday that it's an accommodating course when it's windy and raining and life is hell and misery, just like your scorecard.


I thought standout holes were, well, pretty much the entire front nine, along with 11. The trees up the right side of 12 probably work a little too hard to hide the Challenger course. Hopefully that corridor gets opened up in the next round of tree clearing. But unless you're a little TOO pissed off about that or the tee shots on 10 and 17, I think it's a course without a lot to be annoyed about. Is it crazy to think it's maybe in a league with Canterbury or Holston Hills? Are the greens that solid? Because I think they might be.


I just heard Sankaty Head pronounced out loud for the first time last week. Somebody tell me more about it, and what Skip Wogan might or might not have done there, please.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Phil Wogan was a pleasure to see at the ASGCA meetings.  Really liked his stories, and I inadvertently gave him one to tell.  I was golf chairman at our Palm Springs (the one where we made Dinah Shore our Ross winner....) and for some reason, we came out with an odd number of golfers.  For no particular reason, I chose Phil as the odd man out, which he seemed to take calmly.


At the Presidents dinner, he got up to the podium and gave a rambling talk, touching on how humid golf was making the desert and a few other jokes, but he reserved the biggest barbs for me for shorting him on the golf round.

[Brad Tufts]

It's funny to read how things have changed since my comments back in 2007!  I still have not played Blue Hill or Sankaty...one of these years for sure.  My office is like 10 minutes from Blue Hill.

As for Tedesco, now I'm not entirely certain what Skip Wogan did at this point.

The current timeline for Tedesco, as I know it:

1900-01:  Play over non-club-owned property along Phillips Beach in Swampscott, MA
1903:  Club incorporated
1906:  Move to current front 9 property, nine holes designed by members
1912:  Expanded to 18 holes by Donald Ross (similar but different than today's 18-hole layout)...Wogan was an apprentice to Ross at Essex (after caddying at Oakley where Ross), but only 22 at this point...I'm doubtful he would have been commissioned to design a new golf course at age 22 as an apprentice golf professional at Essex, but I suppose stranger things have happened.
1924:  Renovated by Wayne Stiles (we think) into today's 18.  I suppose this could have been Wogan instead?
1929-1930:  Stiles designs/builds a third 9 (this new 9 was mostly NLE by late 1935).  We have proof of this.
1937:  Ross visits and makes recommendations, we use a few, most notably changing the location of the 12th green.
1940s-80s:  Lots of interior work especially in the 70s/80s...but did anyone consult?  Maybe Wogan in here before his death in 1957?  I believe Phil Wogan was consulted somewhere in here, but not sure if he carried out any work.
1990s:  Stephen Kay bunker renovation
2000s-present:  Ron Forse master plan. Tree removal/fairway expansion ongoing (mostly 2015-2016), green expansion/bunker renovation coming fall/winter 2017/2018.

My understanding of the above is obviously still fluid...hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it all at some point.