MAMARONECK, NEW YORK | When it comes to golf course design, the better layouts are true pieces of art and the architects who created them are virtuosos, able to imagine brilliant routings and transform raw land into splendid fields of play.
Those who practiced that craft more than a century ago were not able to employ heavy equipment, which meant they could not move much dirt. To build a great golf course, they had to discern the character of the terrain and make effective and efficient use of it. As for modern designers, the best are adept at shaping mounds and building bunkers and greens with bulldozers and backhoes, handling those diesel-fueled tools as skillfully as sculptors wield chisels.
Rare is the retreat where the artistry of architects from both design eras is evident. But that is what exists at Winged Foot Golf Club in the Westchester County burg of Mamaroneck, N.Y. The site of next year’s U.S. Open and located some 25 miles from midtown Manhattan, it is home to a pair of stellar courses, the East and the West. They were designed nearly a century ago by A.W. Tillinghast, one of the finest and most prolific architects of that period and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, and recently revamped by Gil Hanse, who is among the most skilled at his craft today.
Using photographs that went as far back as 1923 when the two tracks opened for play, Hanse restored the green complexes and approaches into them to their original sizes and shapes as he also modernized the putting surfaces to ensure they were easier to maintain and better conditioned. In addition, he rebuilt a number of tees that had grown in height due to all the topdressing applied to them through the years.
“We wanted to restore the original architecture of the East and West as we improved the playability,” says Hanse. “As a result, the courses that Winged Foot members play today are as close to what Tillinghast initially constructed here as they ever have been.”
The East and West Courses are regularly ranked among the very best in the world. Together, they have hosted 11 major professional and amateur championships. The first was the 1929 U.S. Open, which Bobby Jones won. Next year’s Open will mark the sixth time America’s national championship has been staged there. But in addition to being a championship venue, Winged Foot is also an active club that boasts a savvy membership, a significant number of whom carry single-digit handicaps.
They also delight in welcoming the best players in the world to compete here on occasion. Not surprisingly, they are pleased and proud of their courses. The restorations demonstrate their commitment.
Golf courses evolve over time, in large part because they are natural, living entities and also because they are regularly maintained and manipulated by human beings. And the ones at Winged Foot most certainly changed through the years. Dozens of trees were planted on both tracks, and they eventually began encroaching on fairways and greens, affecting shots and turf condition. The same thing happened as many of the oaks, maples and beeches that had been there from the beginning grew bigger. Changes in mowing patterns led to the shrinking of green sizes, and after the installation of a center-line irrigation system that threw out water in uniform distances on either side of the pipes, fairways that once boasted different widths and angles started to look the same.
Club leaders recognized those developments, and in the mid- to late 1990s, they engaged architect Tom Fazio to cut down dozens of trees, widen fairway corridors and enlarge some of the greens. While those moves were generally well-received by the Winged Foot membership, they knew more needed to be done, especially with regards to the putting surfaces.
“Eventually, we decided a full restoration was in order,” says Winged Foot member and club historian Neil Regan. “This was of particular importance around the greens on both courses, for as they had shrunk, contours that Tillinghast had originally intended to be part of the putting surfaces had become covered with rough. It was the same way with many of the approaches, and the architect often wrote about how he considered the contours of those areas to be as important as the ones on the greens themselves. The good news was that while the putting surfaces had indeed gotten smaller, the original shaping on the perimeters remained the same. So, in many cases, all it took to recover them was to cut the grass.”
Work started in the fall of 2013, and Hanse says the overall goal was “to put back what Tillinghast had initially done.”
Fortunately, Regan’s predecessor as club historian, Douglas Larue Smith, had assembled one of the best archives in the club world, and among the treasures in his collection was a number of photographs of the greens on both the East and West Courses that were taken in 1923 – and that provide invaluable detail on the original putting surfaces, the bunkering around them and the approaches that Tillinghast had designed.
With that archaeology in hand, the club then brought in Hanse to restore a few of the greens. “What Gil did with those were real eye openers,” Regan says. “I remember the 18th on the East, for example. It had shrunk to something like 3,200 square feet in size, but when he was done, it had become a 10,000-square-foot masterpiece. We determined that 15 yards of the front of that original putting surface that become fairway some years ago, and the perimeter of the green, which featured wonderful contours, had become rough.”
“What Gil did on No. 10 on the East was just as exciting,” Regan adds. “Backed by the clubhouse, it initially had sort of an L shape to match the shape of the building. But it, too, had shrunk to about 3,000 square feet and become circular, with about 10 feet of rough between the actual putting surface and the bunkers around it.”
That initial work was so well-received that the club decided to hire Hanse to restore the entire East Course, and then the West, a project that Regan describes as a “faithful rebuild.”
At the same time, the club moved to modernize all the greens and bring them up to USGA specifications. “Ours were old clay greens,” Regan adds. “They did not drain well or dry out easily when it rained. So, we added sand and gravel below the surface to improve that, and also SubAir systems to each one.”
Work started in the fall of 2013, and Hanse says the overall goal was “to put back what Tillinghast had initially done.”
“We did nine holes at a time,” Hanse says. “We started with the East and completed that in 2104. Then after taking a year off, we moved onto the West, in 2016 and 2017.” A big reason for the pause was that club leaders wanted to see how the East turned out before moving onto the West, which is where the Open is always held.
“Certainly, having the Open back in 2020 was in the back of our heads as we considered the restoration,” Regan says. “But it was not the driving force. We just knew that we needed to get this done.”
Hanse worked closely with Regan and also Winged Foot superintendent Steve Rabideau, and the results of the restoration pleased them all, and the vast majority of the membership as well.
“The greens are back to what they once were,” Regan says. “The tees, too, and there is once again variety to the fairway width and also their angles.”
Just as there had been nearly a century ago, when Tillinghast first built them. And just in time for next year’s U.S. Open.
The clubhouse at Winged Foot Golf Club West Course in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Photo: Courtesy USGA Museum