Walter Travis

Walter Travis was an amateur golfer and golf course architect, born on January 10, 1862 at Maldon in Victoria, Australia. In 1886, at the age of 23, he crossed to New York for his work, and in 1890 he took American citizenship. He did not take up golf until 1896, by which time he was in his middle thirties. Even so he came to the front in a short space of time, winning the U.S. Amateur three times, in 1900, 1901 and 1903. In 1904 he won The Amateur Championship as well, the first player entered from the United States to take that title. At the U.S. Open of 1902 he finished joint second although he was an amateur. He was known as The Old Man.

His design work began around 1899, and Ekwanok Country Club in Vermont (1899, with John Duncan Dunn) is among the early pieces. At Garden City Golf Club on Long Island in New York State, where he was a founding member, he greatly rebuilt the greens and bunkers of the course Devereux Emmet had laid out, unveiling the work for the U.S. Amateur of 1908. In 1917 he designed Hollywood Golf Club in New Jersey, and in 1919 the two eighteen-hole courses at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. According to the Walter J. Travis Society, he built or remodelled 51 courses and gave advice on 33 more.

He was active as a writer and editor too, founding and publishing the golf magazine The American Golfer in 1908. His books include Practical Golf and The Art of Putting (1904). He died at Denver, Colorado on July 31, 1927, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1979.

See the other golf course architects here.