Featured architects
Willie Park Jr.
The first professional to make design a career
- Born
- 1864, Musselburgh, Scotland
- Years active
- 1886–1925
- Works
- 170+ worldwide
- Era
- Founding Era
Why the name endures
Son of a four-time Open champion and twice champion himself, Park Jr. was the first great player to treat course design as a profession rather than a sideline. Beginning at Innerleithen in 1886, he built a practice that reached from Scotland to North America and produced Sunningdale Old, the course that proved inland golf could rival the links.
“A man who can putt is a match for anyone.”
Willie Park Jr.
Design principles
- Fairways that reward the placed drive over the long one
- Greens contoured to accept the running approach
- Inland ground treated with the same respect as linksland
Surviving work
Courses to see
Sunningdale (Old)
Berkshire, England
The course that made the heathland belt southwest of London.
Olympia Fields (North)
Illinois, USA
His major American work, a repeated championship host.
Maidstone
New York, USA
Duneland golf on the eastern end of Long Island.