The Golf Course Architects of Park Ridge
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTS OF PARK RIDGE The Story of the men who shaped the Park Ridge Country Club Golf Course PREFACE When the game of golf and its golf courses had their beginnings in the United States in the late 1800s, there was no such thing as a golf course architect per se. Virtually all of those who “laid out” the rudimentary courses on which the game was played were players of the game, some professional and some amateur, and they continued in the dual role of player-designer. It wasn’t until the second decade of the 20th century that golf course design began to separate itself as a singular career, a career that blossomed into the glorious title of golf course architect in the “Golden Age” of the 1920s. The primary designers (architects) of the Park Ridge Country Club golf course followed the early pattern. H.J. Tweedie was both an active player and course designer until his untimely death in 1906. Tom Bendelow was the first to emphasize course design over playing as he traversed the country laying out courses. In 1918, William Langford became the first Park Ridge architect to form his own course design firm. David Esler was formally educated in landscape architecture. He interrupted an early career as a golf course architect to take a stab at professional golf, but quickly returned to form a course design company. The objective of this document is to provide additional information about the careers of the course architects who formed today’s Park Ridge golf course. For the most part, it does not cover their work at the club, one reason for which is the absence of club records for the period from the club’s 1906 founding through 1920. It was during this period that the basic design and features of today’s course were established. The club’s centennial history book describes the evolution of the course as best can be determined and includes “best guess” diagrams of course layouts during the early years. The Park Ridge Course Architects Original Designs / Major Renovation H.J. Tweedie 1906 Tom Bendelow 1911 William Langford 1915 David Esler 2000 Other Architects David Gill 1953, 1958 Robert Harris 1959 Ken Killian 1960s, 1980s Dick Nugent 1960s, 1980s H. J. TWEEDIE Herbert James Tweedie, Jr. grew up in the game of golf and made the game his life’s work as a player, sporting goods store manager and golf course architect. H.J. was born in 1864 in Bombay, India to English parents of Scottish ancestry. He spent his youth in Hoylake, England, where his father was a member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. He learned the game at the club along with future famous English amateurs John Ball and Harold Hilton. Tweedie’s skill as a young player is evidenced by his two defeats of Ball to win Hoylake Junior Championships. H.J. emigrated to the U.S. in 1886, moved to Chicago in 1887, and became the manager of the A.G. Spalding sporting goods store in the city. He and his brother L.P. became friends with C.B. Macdonald and were members of Macdonald’s original Chicago Golf Club in Belmont, Illinois. When the club moved to Wheaton, Tweedie and others organized the Belmont Golf Club at the old site and built a new course there in 1898. Legend has it that Tweedie and Macdonald played the first game of golf ever played in the Chicago area. Both are credited with having a major influence in establishing the game in the area. Tweedie designed 13 courses in Illinois between 1898 and 1906, notable among which are Midlothian Country Club and LaGrange Country Club, both of which have hosted national championships. He was also a consultant to architect Richard Leslie in the design of the Glen View Club, and participated with James Foulis, Robert Foulis and H.J. Whigham in a remodeling of Onwentsia Club. Because of lost club records, little is known about Tweedie’s design of the original 9-hole course at Park Ridge Country Club. A diagram in the club’s centennial history book suggests a possible routing. Interestingly, his Park Ridge design may have been his last. He died suddenly in July, 1906, two weeks before his 42nd birthday. He is buried in Chicago’s Oak Woods cemetery. Tweedie left behind, with no means of support, his wife Mary Ellen and eight children. A committee led by Western Golf Association President Phelps B. Hoyt sent out an appeal for funds for Tweedie’s estate. In a twist, it was Hoyt who defeated Tweedie in the 1902 U.S. Amateur Championship. H.J. Tweedie’s important place in the history of Chicago golf is reflected well in his obituary. He was called “The Father of Golf in the West.” He was affectionately known as “Pop” because he was “sort of a father confessor for the professionals who all knew him and told him their troubles.” TOM BENDELOW H.J. Tweedie was called “The Father of Golf in the West” based partly on designing 13 golf courses in Illinois and a few more in Indiana and Wisconsin. What might we call a man who designed more than 600 courses (some estimates say up to 1,000) across 30 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces, including more than 60 courses in Illinois? That man is Tom Bendelow and he is known as “The Johnny Appleseed of American Golf.” Tom Bendelow was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1864. His parents owned a popular pie shop in the city; Tom was trained as a typesetter. He learned the game of golf from his father and was a proficient player who traveled to play competitively in Scotland and England. News of a typesetting position with the New York Herald brought Bendelow to the United States in 1892. His entry into the world of golf course design was triggered by an 1895 classified ad from the Pratt family, whose patriarch was a co- founder of the Standard Oil Company. The job was for teaching the game of golf to the family, but it evolved into designing a 6-hole course on the family’s Long Island estate. Between 1895 and 1899, Bendelow laid out numerous courses in New York and New Jersey. In 1899 he was hired to manage the Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course in New York City, where he remodeled an existing 9-hole course and expanded it into the first 18-hole municipal course in the U.S. Success at Van Cortlandt Park established the worth of public golf. In 1901 Bendelow was hired by the A.G. Spalding Company as the manager of its golf department, a position which brought him to Chicago. For the next 16 years he crisscrossed the U.S. and Canada, laying out courses, providing construction advice, encouraging players’ associations, and promoting the growth of the game. Most of Bendelow’s work was focused on spreading the game and “bringing golf to the majority of the populace.” His early designs were fairly basic, with focus on playability and ease of construction and maintenance. Later designs became more strategically intricate, particularly in his work for private clubs. His reputation after his death centered on the primitive staking method labeled “18 Stakes on a Sunday Afternoon” that was used by many early course architects. The details of Bendelow’s work at Park Ridge, as with H.J. Tweedie’s, reside in lost club records. His most notable courses are the Atlanta Athletic Club, Bob Jones’ home course at East Lake Country Club, and all three courses at Medinah. His work at Courses #1 and #3 at Medinah has been mostly lost in subsequent renovations, but Course #2 has been restored as a “true” Bendelow course. Tom Bendelow died in 1936 at age 67. His legacy is perhaps best expressed by a quote from his grandson Stuart: “More people have learned to play golf on a Tom Bendelow designed course than that of any other golf course architect.” WILLIAM LANGFORD In 1915 the unexpected availability of a 20-acre parcel of land led to a decision by the club to undertake a significant modification of the 18-hole golf course designed by Tom Bendelow just four years earlier. The decision created the need for a golf course architect to design the revised course. It would seem that Bendelow was an obvious choice, but the club engaged a lightly experienced 28-year-old who was just a few years out of college. Why William Langford? One reason may have been a book published by Langford titled Golf Course Architecture in the Chicago District. Whatever the reasons, the club chose a man who would go on to become a widely recognized course architect throughout the midwest, and whose work at Park Ridge created the fundamental structure of today’s golf course.1 William Langford was born in 1887 in Austin, Illinois. He suffered from polio as a child and took up golf as part of a rehab program. He developed into a fine amateur player and was a member of three NCAA championship teams at Yale. He earned a masters degree in mining engineering at Columbia University but chose another career path. He became a golf course architect for the American Park Builders company. Langford formed his own course design firm in 1918 in partnership with engineer Theodore Moreau. With Langford focused on design and Moreau on construction, the firm was active throughout the midwest from the 1920s to World War II. Late in his career, Langford estimated that he had designed some 250 courses and had at one time employed eighty men.