M O U N T A I N
R I D G E
C O U N T R Y
C L U B
34
the game: writing, reporting, advocating public golf, photographing golf scenes, organizing tournaments, playing on a high level. He got his first opportunity in golf design when he was thirty-six. A wealthy friend asked him to lay out a course in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania; the resulting course hosted the PGA Championship in 1938. Tillinghast was finding his way in the course-building business in the mid1910s, creating Aronimink in 1915 (since replaced); Brackenridge Park (San Antonio) and Shackamaxon (Westfield, New Jersey) in 1916, and Somerset Hills (Bernardsville, New Jersey) in 1917. In the five years after his work for Mountain Ridge, Tillinghast designed Upper Montclair, San Francisco Golf Club, Newport, Quaker Ridge, and thirty-six holes each for Winged Foot and Baltusrol. The New York Tribune reported that Tillinghast had staked off nine holes to create a course “which will be up to date, very sporty and much larger than the old course… all natural hazards have been taken advantage of, including the water hazards.” This area of the property was not as hilly as the original nine, and likely was an improvement over the initial effort. The holes totaled 3,060 yards, distributed as follows:
Course at Yale, Chicago Golf Club, the Creek Club, and Mid-Ocean. Another was Albert Warren Tillinghast, who spent part of 1916-17
Hole No. 1 .........450
Hole No. 4......... 125
Hole No. 7......... 410
Hole No. 2......... 320
Hole No. 5......... 500
Hole No. 8......... 435
Hole No. 3......... 375
Hole No. 6......... 130
Hole No. 9......... 315
designing a new nine holes for Mountain Ridge’s West Orange property. Tillinghast was born into a wealthy Philadelphia family and
The difference from the original nine was less than two hundred yards,
approached life like a character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. He drank
but it’s easy to see how it would play much longer. The older nine had four
heavily, partied heartily, left a series of schools without graduating, dressed
holes between 275 and 320 yards, only one longer par four (400 yards), and
sharp, talked big, and traveled widely. He fell in love with golf at a young age,
par fives of 480 and 500 yards. The Tillinghast distances look more normal
making many trips to St. Andrews where he often played the Old Course
to the modern eye, with short and long par fours (315, 320, 375, 410, 435),
with Old Tom Morris. He threw himself into a broad range of activities in
two short par threes, and two long holes (450 and 500).
A.W. Tillinghast.