A. W. Tillinghast

A. W. Tillinghast was a golf course architect, born on May 7, 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His full name was Albert Warren Tillinghast, and he was known to everyone as Tillie. He was taught the game by Old Tom Morris and was devoted to St Andrews. As an amateur he reached the last 32 of the U.S. Amateur in 1903, 1904, 1906 and 1908, and tied for 25th place in the U.S. Open of 1903.

The first course he built was Shawnee Country Club at Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania. Construction began in 1909 and the course opened in 1911. More than 265 courses followed. The best known are the Upper and Lower courses at Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey, opened in June 1922, and the West and East courses at Winged Foot Golf Club in New York State, opened in 1923. San Francisco Golf Club, Quaker Ridge Golf Club and Somerset Hills Country Club are his work as well, and fifty major championships have been played on courses he designed.

Alongside his design work he wrote for the golf magazines The American Golfer and Golf Illustrated, and for a time served as an editor of the latter. He was a member of the PGA of America from its founding. When the Depression brought commissions for new courses to a halt, he set out in 1935 as consulting architect to the PGA of America, travelling the country and advising private and public clubs alike on improving the courses they already had. He is also said to have had a hand, in an advisory role, in Bethpage Black, the New York State public course that opened in 1936. He died at Toledo, Ohio on May 19, 1942.

His name was largely forgotten for a time after his death, until Frank Hannigan wrote about him in 1974 in an article titled “Golf’s Forgotten Genius”. In that same year four of the USGA’s championships were played on courses of his design, and his work came back into view. In 2015 he was chosen for the lifetime achievement category of the World Golf Hall of Fame, the sixth golf course architect to be inducted. GoGolf does not at present list any course designed by Tillinghast.

See the other golf course architects here.