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GOLF RESOURCE GUIDE:
The art of design
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 Virginia Country Club in Long Beach has retained Tillinghast's design charm (COURTESY: Virginia Country Club). Tillinghast’s greatest courses are those he designed early in his career in the eastern United States, including Bethpage Black, Baltusrol and Winged Foot. He moved to Los Angeles after going bankrupt during the Great Depression, and tried to revive his career with work at such courses as Brookside Golf Club in Pasadena, Palos Verdes Golf Club and Virginia Country Club in Long Beach. “A round of golf should present 18 inspirations — not necessarily thrills, for spectacular holes may be sadly overdone,” Tillinghast wrote in “Reminiscences of Tillinghast.” “It must be remembered that the majority of golfers are aiming to reduce their previous best performances, first, last and all the time, and if any one of them arrives at the home teeing ground with this possibility in reach, he is not caring two hoots whether he is driving off from nearby an ancient oak of majestic size and form or a dead sassafras. If his round ends happily it is one beautiful course. Such is human nature.” Tillinghast also was an advocate of strategy and felt greens were key to any course. In writing about Winged Foot, he said that its “holes are like men, all rather similar from foot to neck, but with the greens showing the same varying characters as human faces.” THE ART OF DESIGN: TEN GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTS George C. Thomas | A.W. Tillinghast | William P. Bell | Ted Robinson Sr. Tom Fazio | Casey O’Callaghan | Clive Clark Todd Eckenrode | Damian Pascuzzo | John Harbottle BACK TO MAIN PAGE |
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