All things Dick Wilson thread

[Ronald Montesano]

Jim Nagle is tackling the North Course restoration at NCR. If you've not seen the NCR courses, you should make an effort to get to west Ohio.

If you have other things to say about Dick, this is the place!

[Tommy Williamsen]

I guess the first question is to ask, "How many DW courses have been unaltered?" Cog Hill, Laurel Valley, Bay Hill, Pine Tree, and Doral Blue certainly aren't. I played Coldstream last summer.  Keith Foster did a restoration. It was very good, although he did remove many very old specimen trees. I played NCR South about 30 years ago. It was very difficult. I can see why it hosted PGA tournaments. I'll be interested to see what gets done on the South Course. The North course was more fun.
He designed long, difficult courses that fell out of favor, while the routings were good, it seems many of the holes needed tweaking.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think Wilson was solid. If he had a weakness, it might have been that RTJ managed to win the PR battle, and we know he put a lot of effort into elevating himself, being quite good with the press.  I am not sure Wilson was.  I'm not sure when he became a big alcoholic, but that may have been a factor in that and the decline of his reputation.


I view the biggest weakness of Wilson's plans to be typical of the era.  His hazards was limited to sand, water, trees, and lawns. They never considered fw cut chipping areas or even a different bunker style, i.e., the occasional waste or pot bunker.  He was also consistent in having elevated greens with semi-gentle upslope on fw approaches, ranging from 5-15%.  Truthfully, I find those more attractive than ground level greens, although it certainly reinforced the aerial game, also typical of the era.  IMHO, his greens were typically over defended, if that is such a thing.


The other thing I have said about that era is that they were so technically solid.  I have never seen a Wilson bunker that had water draining in it, which I find occasionally to regularly lacking in some design/shaping today. On the other hand, they didn't do a lot of fairway drainage, i.e., if the land was flat, it was flat and slow draining.


Also, having seen the original green plans for La Costa, they were not particularly realistic.  The biggest thing is they showed the greenside bunkers at the very edge of the green, but I doubt he ever built a green that way.

[Jim Sherma]

In the Golf Digest "100 Greatest Golf Courses - and Then Some" book from 1982 Wilson has the following:


Pine Tree GC - Third 10
Laurel Valley GC - Fourth 10
Scioto Ross/Wilson - Fourth 10
Bay Hill Club - Fifth 10
Cog Hill #4 Wilson/Lee - Fifth 10
Doral CC Blue - Fifth 10
JDM CC East Fifth 10


7 out of the top 50 at that point in time


Then in the second 50


Coldstream CC
La Costa CC
Meadow Brook Club
NCR South
Sea Island GC Colt/Allison/Wilson


That makes for 10% of the top 100 being solo designs with 2 other significant re-do's.


Significant legacy and highly thought of at that point in time.

[Tim Gavrich]

Pine Tree is a great golf course - just ask Ben Hogan.


We played Callaway Gardens a couple of times in college - I really enjoyed it.


I like golf courses that leave you aspiring to be a better player without discouraging you and thats how I've come away from the Wilson courses I've played. There's an unfussiness that maybe sometimes borders on the simple or pedestrian to some, but the good golf courses of the Wilson/RTJ Sr. era give me similarly warm feelings to looking at an Eames chair. Midcentury-modern style is all the rage - I think that era's better golf courses probably deserve a little more respect than some seem willing to dole out at the moment.


Aside from the bigger names like NCR and Deepdale, I've always been curious to see the likes of Fincastle (VA), Cavalry (NY) and Bidermann (DE).

[Ian Mackenzie]

Played Hole in the Wall in Naples, FL a few times over the winter. Loved it and Ron Forse did a great job on the resto a few years back.


Short course  (6500+ from "tips") but you need to work it both ways and show some restraint or you will pay.


My first exposure to Wilson was in Chicago suburbs at Cog Hill #4 "Dubsdread" - host of several tourneys and known, of course, for the Rees Jones misfire attempt at getting an Open there.


Played at least 50 rounds at "Dubs" and always loved it. Worked every club in the bag always.

[Keith Williams]

I learned to play on a Dick Wilson course, except by GCA logic the course had almost no Wilson in it.  It was one of his final courses and it has been commonly accepted that near the end of his life he wasn't contributing and it was really Joe Lee behind the scenes doing the work.


I grew up playing a lot of Joe Lee courses as well.  I have never quite reconciled the idea that the Wilson course was really just 100% Lee.  In my eyes it had a different/varied routing, used the land better and possessed more nuanced bunkering and bunker styling than the comparable Lee courses in the area that I was familiar with.


With that said, I really loved the Wilson course.  Good use of terrain for both uphill and downhill shots.  Strong par 5's many of which were double-dogleg in shape.  Par 3's and par 4's varied in length and challenge; many of the par 4's had a strong enough dogleg which placed a premium on tee shot strategy.


-Keith

[Tom_Doak]

In the Golf Digest "100 Greatest Golf Courses - and Then Some" book from 1982 Wilson has the following:


Pine Tree GC - Third 10
Laurel Valley GC - Fourth 10
Scioto Ross/Wilson - Fourth 10
Bay Hill Club - Fifth 10
Cog Hill #4 Wilson/Lee - Fifth 10
Doral CC Blue - Fifth 10
JDM CC East Fifth 10


7 out of the top 50 at that point in time

Then in the second 50

Coldstream CC
La Costa CC
Meadow Brook Club
NCR South
Sea Island GC Colt/Allison/Wilson

That was back when GOLF DIGEST's rankings emphasized "Resistance to Scoring" and "Shot Values" [which meant difficult approach shots to most of their panelists], and that was Wilson's hallmark.  So as Tommy said, he is a victim of changing tastes.

[Mike_Young]

Aside from the bigger names like NCR and Deepdale, I've always been curious to see the likes of Fincastle (VA), Cavalry (NY) and Bidermann (DE).

Fincastle?   I had a visit to Fincastle in the early 90's and I bet you can't guess who was on the green committee....clue- he was mate on a minnow and his last name was same as a Colorado city...     Oh...really nice mountain course...not real long...The town of Bluefield was suffering from mines closing etc at the time...

[cary lichtenstein]

I liked Dick Wilson's work, Cog Hill was my favorite

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Aside from the bigger names like NCR and Deepdale, I've always been curious to see the likes of Fincastle (VA), Cavalry (NY) and Bidermann (DE).

Fincastle?   I had a visit to Fincastle in the early 90's and I bet you can't guess who was on the green committee....clue- he was mate on a minnow and his last name was same as a Colorado city...     Oh...really nice mountain course...not real long...The town of Bluefield was suffering from mines closing etc at the time...

No way!!  Was our little buddy a player?1?

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

I actually played a place a couple weeks ago outside Atlanta that I was not aware was a Dick Wilson until I was scanning ATL area courses trying to find ones I have not played on my quest to play different places.  When I came across Mystery Valley GC near Stone Mountain the name originally caught my attention and when I saw on their website that it was built in 1966 by Dick Wilson that sealed the deal.


By the looks of the place I am guessing they haven't had the budget over the years to bring in someone to significantly alter the course.  Does anyone know for sure?  I would just guess it might be pretty original.


I just posted a video and 10 pictures on my Instagram @thequestfor3000 about 4-5 days ago.  If I was smarter I could post some here, but I'm not.