Tom,
You asked for a list of what I consider Tilly’s most important works. You picked 9 & so I “limited” it to that many. I’m sure a few will surprise you. Here it is as well as the reasons why I have picked these… Sorry for the length, but I feel the explanations are as important as the choices. I have listed them in the order of when they opened for play.
Shawnee – 1911
This was his first; that alone makes it significant, yet few 1st courses have had as profound an impact on a great architect’s career. If there was ever a course that made use of “template” holes and features, this was it. From the Punchbowl green to the “mid-surrey-type” alpinization that was copied almost immediately by others, still these features were incorporated in a manner that were considered fresh ideas rather than copies of great holes. His use of the Binniekill of the Delaware River and the isle of Shawnee was also a bold move as he had a choice of places on the property upon which to build the course. In addition, in 1912 they first played the Shawnee Open that was the fore-runner of the Eastern open. Especially during the teens this was considered among the handful of most important tournaments played in America. Every great pro of the day, both American and the international players who came to America at that time, competed in it. Its acclaim as a great design was carried throughout the country by these professionals and resulted in Tilly’s consideration for work nearly anywhere in the country at a time when communication and trans-American travel were rudimentary at best.
Brackenridge Park – 1916
This is an example of work that probably came about as a result of Shawnee. It was among the first of what I would refer to as engineered golf courses. It was built on a so-so site that required tremendous labor yet he was able to incorporate many of the difficult local features such as the swampy streams into a number of the holes. He also preserved and used a good number of specimen trees. This is the site of the original Texas Open and where it was contested for more years than can be counted. With the forming of the fledgling Professional Golfers Association in 1916, this became a most important stop as it also attracted what was the largest purse ($6,000) of any tournament in the country at the time.
Cedar Crest – 1916
A fine design, yet its importance lay in the part it played in bringing about Tilly’s work in the entire region. For example, Brook Hollow & Oak Hills in Texas, as well as the Tulsa and Oaks Country Clubs in Oklahoma were all projects that can be traced to his work here. Cedar Crest is also another design whose own origin can be traced back to Shawnee and the Eastern Open.
San Francisco Golf Club – 1919(?)
Consider just some of the designs that Tilly was working on at the same time he was designing what may be his finest creation of all. Baltusrol, Philadelphia Cricket Club, Cedar Brook, Brook Hollow, Cedar Crest & Quaker Ridge to literally name but a few.
Baltusrol Lower & Upper – 1922
This project would take nearly 6 years to complete. It is one of the great feats of golf course engineering. He took a course that had hosted numerous US Opens and Amateurs and gutted it in order to build two courses, both of which were far better the original, in its place. This is the project that was spoken of where Tilly was given an unlimited budget and exceeded it; yet it was money very well spent. Beyond the quality of the designs, the project required Tilly to have “at least 18 holes open for play at all times” despite how the old course would be destroyed. One of the very first, if not the first, project where two courses were designed and constructed at the same time. Just four years after opening it would host the 1926 US Amateur championship.
Winged Foot – 1923
This is the site of where Tilly was given just one piece of instruction; build us a “man-sized” course. Did he ever. The bunkers, the greens, the intertwining of two courses routed in and around each other to create what may be the two finest courses at any single club, was both brilliant and inspiring. From the unforgettable 1929 US Open won by Bobby Jones in a playoff down to today, it has remained the site where champions are defined.
Baltimore Country Club, 5 Farms – 1925
This was another two-course project where the second course was never built. It is among his most elegant of designs. The routing is subtly brilliant in how it meanders through the rolling hillsides without ever being repetitive or exhausting. The green complexes are among his finest and most exciting. With all of the great courses designed by Tilly before 5 Farms, it holds the distinction (along with Fresh meadows) as the clubs of his which first held two national championships, the 1928 PGA & 1932 US Amateur.
Alpine – 1931
Among all of his great designs, the importance of Alpine and it’s influence in golf course architecture and construction is two-fold. First, the nation was suffering the worst of the Great Depression. There was little enough money for food, let alone the building of a golf club that would have stretched the pocket books of it’s Gatsby-era members just a few years before. This project sent a message throughout the land that great courses and expensive undertakings could still take place. The second, and maybe greatest aspect of its importance, lay in the engineering feet that was required to simply build it.
To enable them to deal with the site conditions, they first established a large work camp, with a field office and even a commissary. These were needed as the holes were carved out of thick forest, swampland, and tremendous rock. This should not have surprised anyone as the Palisades of the Hudson River is quite close at hand, the cliffs of which are made of some of the most beautiful and strongest rock formations in North America. There was so much rock needing removal that more than thirty tractors were kept in continuous duty to accomplish the task.
If that were not enough, the first year of the project was plagued with unseasonable and continuous rain. The second year had the opposite problem as the drought that plagued the mid-west and turned it into a dust bowl was now being felt here in the east. The tractors and vehicles were covered with such a thick layer of dust that Harold Worden observed, “They looked like ghosts.”
Even with all of the rock being carted daily from the property, a great deal of it was piled up or crushed on site and laid out as a base for the fairways. Thousands of cubic yards of cinders, manure and peat moss were worked into the soil that covered these over. Today there is no sign of it being an artificial construction; in fact, the course gives the impression of having been carved out of the soil.
Worden loved the putting surfaces, writing that, “I think the greens are the most pleasing I ever have seen, imposing yet of pleasing simplicity. Each has its rock foundation and several were built entirely of assembled stones before the soil was drawn over in ample measure. Even the approaches to the greens were contoured as ingeniously as the greens themselves. This new course is a great one.”
After this, no course would be impossible to build.
Bethpage State Park – ENTIRE project 1935-36
Bethpage State Park is defined by the Black Course, and yet it, and the entire project, was so much more than that. First of all it was, and remains, the largest single golf-course building project ever accomplished. Neither before or since has there been a project where three new courses (and an existing one that was completely renovated) were designed and constructed at one time on a single site. There are larger facilities, but everyone of these was the product of courses being added along singularly.
The designs of the three new courses were starkly different from each other and yet each had design features that Tilly had spent his entire career in developing. Each one was also recognized by all, professionals, USGA and the average Joe alike as being challenging and inspiring. To this day it is still the only club where three different courses have hosted National Championships. In fact one of these, the 1936 USGA Publinks, was awarded to the club before the first course opened for play in April 0f 1935.
During the era when professional players needed to play exhibition matches to just scrape out a living, the quality of players and the size of the crowds following them were most impressive. Imagine 10,000 people during the Depression coming out on a Monday to watch an exhibition match staged by two golfers. This took place on September 29th in 1940 when Byron Nelson proved his superiority over Sam Snead on the Black course during an epic match that has inspired myths about it in the New York area. Nelson and Snead (Nelson had beaten Snead at Hershey for the PGA Championship just 6 weeks before) with Byron being declared the winner as a result of shooting a 69 and setting a new course record. Ironically it was Snead’s record of 70 that he broke from two years before and that he managed to tie that day.
Lawson Little, Lighthorse Harry Cooper, Jimmy Hines, gene Sarazen and many others all played exhibitions here.
Bethpage proved that municipalities could build and provide golf and golf courses for the public that could and did rival the greatest private facilities, even during these, the toughest of times.