Chicago Aerials: H.J.Tweedie From Hoylake to Chicago

[Dan Moore]

H.J. Tweedie was one of the first working architects in the Chicago area.  Two courses Tweedie had a hand in two courses which hosted early US Opens.  Tweedie hailed from Hoylake where he was an avid golfer and member of Royal Liverpool.  He moved to Chicago in 1887.  

In 1895 Tweedie took over the site of the original Chicago Golf Club in Belmont (now Downers Grove) from MacDonald when the club moved to its current site in Wheaton.  Until his death in 1921 Tweedie and his brother managed A.G. Spaulding Company which at various times employed William Langford and Tom Bendelow as golf architects.  With respect to Langford, Tweedie designed Westward Ho! which was Langford's home course at the time he attended Yale in 1906-1907.  Until 1922 Westward Ho!, (6,103 yds, no longer exists) was located in Galewood (now Oak Park) which bordered Chicago.  

H.J.Tweedie



Among Tweedie's courses were:

Bryn Mawr (1897) 9 holes 2,287 yds

Onwentsia (1898) redesigned and added 9 holes w/Robert Foulis, James Foulis and H.J. Whigham site of 1906 US Open

Flossmoor (1899)  6,100 yds

Midlothian (1898) 6,387 yds site of 1914 US Open

Ridge (1902)

Exmoor (1902) 6,005 yds featured a 90 degree dogleg hole, possibly the first crooked hole in Chicago

Park Ridge (1906)

Here are Midlothian, Ridge and Exmoor as they appreared in 1939 and today.  I will post Onwentsia, Tweedie's other US Open Course, later today.

Midlothian


Midlothian Today


Ridge


Ridge Today



Exmoor (dogleg hole which was east of the clubhouse has been eliminated)


Exmoor Today

[Tim_Cronin]

Dan,
Ridge moved from its original 1902 site, did it not? Did HJT have a hand in both incarnations?

[T_MacWood]

Midlothian is very interesting, wasn't it one of the more important championship courses in the old days?

I think Colt was involved at Exmoor at some point.

Tweedie appears to be ahead of his time when it comes to bunkering.

[T_MacWood]

David aka Shivas
You appear to still be hurt about your confusion on the architectural attribution of the last Chicago aearial. I'll step back and allow you to handle it from now on....few care about Chicago architecture (outside Cook county) and I can see you prefer it that way.

I think you are the only person on GCA who looks upon a Colt attribution negatively. Colt did not do much work in America it just so happens he did more in Chicago than any where else.
 
You must be salivating with Medinah on deck.  

[Patrick Hitt]

Tom,
I am not aware of Colt ever being involved at Exmoor. He did work at Old Elm up the road with Ross less than 10 years before Ross reworked Exmoor.  The 2nd green at Exmoor is thought to be a Tweedie green. His Flossmoor holes are some of my favorites.

[T_MacWood]

Patrick
Colt was pretty active in Chicago when he visited there in 1913.

Colt did design Old Elm and Ross built it. Old Elm is the only course in Ross's portfolio in which he put in parenthesis 'construction'. It is well documented that Colt engaged Ross for his construction expertise on his Chicago tour.

Glen View, Colt and Ross visited it as well and there were some changes carried out according to reports at the time. Chicago GC, they vistied there too, I'm not sure what they did there but whatever the case Raynor redesigned the course in 1923.

Colt and HH Barker designed Indian Hill (the Colt sketch in Shackeford's Golden Age is Indian Hill) and last I checked the club was listing Colt and Barker as their architects...however Ross did redsign it subsequently.

I'm not sure what the story is at Exmoor, but Colt listed it as a course he gave advice or redesigned. Ross listed Exmoor as a course he remodeled. I suspect there may be an interesting story there somewhere.

All these courses (Old Elm, Exmoor, Chicago, GlenView and Indian Hill) are listed in Colt's portfolio of the early 1920's. There are magazine and newspaper reports of his visits as well.

Now back to Tweedie...if its OK with Shivas.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom Mac,

Thanks for the info on design attributions. I have my original copy of Whittens book, with hand written notes on legal pads concerning who designed evey course in Chicago at that time.

Dan,

Keep em coming. I am now outside of Cook County, but I love em. And thanks for that Picture of Tweedie -  Thanks to you I have fallen a notch in the all time list of "gca's with bad bodies and terrible pants."

Speaking of attributions, who are the gca's responsible for the changes?  The Exmoor bunkers look from the air to do a decent job of capturing the placement of the original design, and may be pretty attractive to boot.  The others look to have been done earlier.

[Dan Moore]

Tim,

You are correct.  Ridge relocated to its current site in 1916.  I have no information who designed Ridge at its new location.  Some of ther fairway bunkering and the wrap around the green bunkers look like Langford, some of the other bunkering doers not look like Langford.  There are some grass bunkers in the fairways that Langford also used.  It would be interesting to find out who designed Ridge in 1916.  I doubt its Langford though.  

Exmoor.

Exmoor is significantly changed from an old routing I have seen.  Forty acres of new land was acquired in 1907 after the original design.  Most of the holes are different but the twin side by side greens 9 and 18 just to the west of the clubhouse were in the original design.  

Most of the aerials are from 35-40 years after Tweedie designed the courses which raises the question of how much in the aerials is original to Tweedie.  I am curious as to what Royal Liverpool was like when Tweedie was there and how much of its influence would be found in his design work.  Hoylake hosted the first Amateur Championship in 1885 while Tweedie was still there.  

Jeff,

As you probably know Killian and Nugent worked on each of these courses at some point.  And heck witrh the pants, what about that club.  Tiger wouldn't be able to break 90 at Royal Liverpool with that thing.