AW Tillinghast. Best architect of all time?

Is he? I’d say he’s tough to beat. Here is a guy who didn’t rely on crazy gimmicks like Pete Dye has. He just brought us good golf holes that will challenge anyones game.

Your opinions please.

AW was phenomenal.

Allister - cypress, Royal Melbourne, Augusta, and on.... tough to beat

I never really paid attention to architects until recently, but living in New Jersey for quite a few years I was always drawn to certain courses. I finally started researching what those courses had in common and it was one thing: Tillinghast.

Brackenridge Park and Oaks Hills in SA are phenomenal tracks.

Tillie was top notch without a doubt, he's definitely a top five golden age guy. The best may be a bit of a stretch in my opinion, but he is up there. Mackenzie is a clear cut number one in my book; as mentioned above he's got three designs in the top ten on the planet, not to mention other genius courses he did like Cal Club or Pasatiempo. After him it's a toss up between a few others for me. Donald Ross made some incredible courses, Old Tom Morris revolutionized golf course design, and CB MacDonald is considered the father of american golf design. I love Tillinghast, two of his designs are in my personal top five ive played (Philly Cricket and Bethpage Black), and he really was one of the best.

AW is solid, I really have learnt to love Billy Flynn tracks too... a lot of elevated false fronts, play every stick in the bag. A lot of people outside the tri-state area wouldn't really know much about him, but some of the tracks are just insane. Merion, Shinny and the County Club are obvious, but some super sneaky one that are phenomenal are Manufacturers and Rolling Green in the Philly area - incredible Golf "Clubs".

Stanley Thompson doesn't get enough respect due to lack of big name USA tracks

incredible stuff done by him up here United States — Stanley Thompson Society I'm a big Tilly the Terror fan

Incredibly subjective ranking:

MackenzieMcDonaldTillinghastRossRaynor

Kind of a weak analysis. Convince us. I've not played any Tillies. Only familiar with Bethpage and Winged Foot from TV.

No.

He didn’t design bethpage black

My opinion is that I have no issue with "crazy gimmicks". I play golf to have fun; not to honor an architect from 100 years ago.

I've only played two Tillinghast courses (Cedar Crest and Breckenridge Park) and was not impressed. Of course that was decades ago and memories fade.

Just a thought; If Tillinghast was building courses with modern equipment maybe he would build them like Pete Dye. He didn't have that option 100 years ago. Who knows?

Absolutely they would have traded in the horse drawn plows for modern earth movers and take away #17 at Sawgrass and some of the PGA West stuff, etc... there's more substance if folks look beyond the style for Dye's top courses.

Speaking of Tillie, Breckenridge is solid now after the refurb, especially the back nine, the front is a bit too much back/forth parallel. That said IMHO the refurbed Landa Park up the road is better, but doesn't have a pedigree for the Instagram/Youtube golfers to be attracted to.

Brackenridge has to be Tillinghast's 50th best course? Maybe? Sitting on completely uninteresting land. It's a really nice course for locals (the redo is really good) and a pleasure to play, but it's really not a course to judge Tillinghast by. I also agree that Pete Dye is a very good designer. Even the things that appear gimmicky, have thought to them. The sloping of the 17th green at Sawgrass can dramatically effect how the hole plays with the day's pin position. Front pin - You have room to miss long and still have it funnel back. Back pin - Don't hit it onto the right level and the ball will collect to the front leaving a 50 foot putt. He did a tremendous job with strategy in an age where designers were learning what to do with heavy machinery.

And Landa is very good!

Oh sure, I wouldn't use it as anything for or against Tillie - it was solely in reply to RK's post, that there's been some changes since he last teed it up there.

Partial to Donald Ross myself. I'd probably enjoy A. Mackenzie if I could get on his courses. Also quite enjoy W. Bell courses in California.

Stanley Thompson. Sleepy Hollow in Cleveland. Exceptionsl.

+ Lancaster CC ...as good as anything he produced IMHO

Stop it. He designed Bethpage Black and Bethpage Red, and renovated Bethpage Green. Don't throw around stupid Ron Whitten propaganda.

What "crazy gimmicks" did Pete Dye use? I've enjoyed both Dye courses that I played, and for their excellent strategic choices and variety. Nothing gimmicky about them.

Exactly, you know exactly what you're going to get when you step on a Dye design!

Not saying I hate Pete Dye designs but railroad ties on a golf course are gimmicky.

Pete Dye “over designs” his courses to the detriment of appealing to golfers like me that enjoy courses that blend with the natural surroundings. Take the two examples below. The first is from the Irish course. I steered my iron slightly left of thIs green on the Irish to find myself in this contrived bunker with pushed up dirty 10 feet high between me and the green with no ability to create a backswing. That is hard to mark in a course guide and overly penal for an obvious man made structure. In the second, I went for the green on a par 5 windy day at whistling and found myself in this banker blind to me from the fairway. Since I was up against the 20 foot wall of railroad ties, I had to take an unplayable. This was one of several unplayable shots taken in two days at two courses. As a 10 handicap, I found the number of unplayables that resulted from contrived and unnatural designs a turn off. Overall, I would play the courses again but the courses looses its appeal with these features

Hmmm.... just like hundreds of courses all over Ireland and Scotland. But since they were not designed by Pete Dye, they are wonderful.

How about a shed that you have to hit over. Is that also "gimmicky?"

Completely agree, the best architects take what the land gives them to create their vision whereas many of the modern designers let the front end loader define the design. Doak and C&C worked with the land pretty well but for me Dye just an inorganic architect, most of his courses always felt contrived to me and I’ve played many. My favorite being Pete Golf Club in WV but there is a course where the green complexes were so severe you could see a putt break 3 ways in 10 feet, that is no organic design.

Agree. Those just look like very challenging hard bunkers.

Then you don’t like CB Macdonald or Seth Raynor courses?