Willie Park junior
Willie Park Junior (born February 4, 1864 in Musselburgh , East Lothian , † May 1925 in Edinburgh ) was a professional golfer who pioneered golf as a player, club maker and golf architect .
life and work
Born and raised in Musselburgh, at that time one of the major golf centers in Scotland next to St Andrews , Willie Park Junior's career choice was never a question: his father Willie Park senior won the Open Championship four times, his uncle Mungo Park once and he himself was ultimately able to win two book (1887, 1889). First he worked as a caddy, greenkeeper and golf instructor, then he took over the family business of ball and club production and expanded it into a market-leading company with the help of a few patents.
From 1886 he also worked as a golf architect, initially standing in for his sick father in Innerleithen . Other designs from his early phase are Silloth-on-Solway (1892, but probably only advisory), Baberton (1893), Larne (1895), Dieppe (1897), Bruntsfield Links (1898), Gullane # 2 (1898) and Burntisland ( 1899).
In 1896, Park published The Game of Golf, the first ever golf book written by a professional golfer . The chapter “Laying Out and Keeping Golf Links” is one of the earliest publications on the subject of golf architecture. His well-known sentence "The laying out of a golf course is by no means a simple task" (the design of a golf course is by no means a trivial task) indicates the development of an independent professional profile.
In 1901, Park started the golden age of golf architecture, which later became known as the golden age, with the first two domestic courses that could compete with the leading links courses to date : Sunningdale and Huntercombe (the latter with considerable financial participation from Park himself). Although Sunningdale is the much better known course today, Huntercombe can come up with two historically significant innovations: on the one hand, there was a green on two levels for the first time, and on the other, it was the first golf course to be planned as part of a housing estate.
Due to the international reputation of these projects, which soon began, numerous orders at home and abroad followed. Particularly noteworthy are the first 9 holes in Austria in the Vienna Prater (1901), which were destroyed in the Second World War. Two more designs in France followed: Golf de La Boulie near Versailles (1901) and Evian-les-Bains (1904), although the latter was replaced by a new course from 1988. Other works were Notts Hollinwell (1901), Montrose (1903), Royal Antwerp (1910), City of Derry (1911), Glasgow Gailes (1912) and Shiskine (1913).
Financial difficulties in connection with his large-scale Huntercombe project forced Park to emigrate to the USA in 1916, where he designed further courses: among others for the Woodway Country Club (1916), the Shuttle Meadow Country Club (1917), the Battle Creek Country Club (1921) ) and the Maidstone Club (1922). He also worked in Canada, where he designed around 20 golf courses, for example the Mount Bruno Golf Club near Quebec (1919). The highlight of his overseas work was the US Open course in Olympia Fields, Illinois (1922). A total of between 170 and almost 200 layouts in Europe and North America are ascribed to him.
Although Willie Park Junior was one of the most important protagonists of the golden age of golf architecture, he still held some views that must be attributed to the punishing design philosophy. For example, a good player should never face obstacles, so Park often placed his bunkers off the line of play. Mounds of earth, ramparts and similar Victorian barriers are also one of its trademarks. Nevertheless, there are enough heroic and strategic elements on his courses, for example he preferred large, undulating greens and wide fairways. He promoted strategic play across the ground by rarely defending his greens head-on. Even psychological tricks, such as bunkers 50 meters from the green, were part of his repertoire. In addition, his natural design method was groundbreaking: in “The Game of Golf” he admonishes the golf architects to be open to natural conditions and speaks not of “constructing” but of “finding” the holes.
In May 2013, Willie Park Junior was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mark Rowlinson (Ed.): World Atlas of Golf . Hamlyn, 2008, ISBN 0600617947
literature
- John WL Adams: The Parks of Musselburgh . Grant Books, 1991, ISBN 0907186165
- Walter Stephen: Willie Park Junior - The Man who took Golf to the World. Luath Press Limited, 2005, ISBN 1905222211
See also
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Park, Willie Jr. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Park, Willie Jr. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish professional golfer and golf architect |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1864 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Musselburgh |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 1925 |
| Place of death | Edinburgh |