September 28, 1890 – January 24, 1945.
My good and dearly departed friend, Jack Whitaker, was kind enough to write the foreword to my biography of Flynn, The Nature Faker—William S. Flynn, Golf Course Architect. I’ve included it below for your reference as The William Flynn Society (“WFS”) dedicates its first Newsletter to an introduction to this brilliant and influential golf course designer, constructor, turf specialist, and golf course superintendent in U.S. history.
“The origins of this obsessive game we call golf are so murky and slippery that it is impossible to say where and when man first hit a small ball with a stick. Was it a lonely shepherd on the windy shores of Scotland, or a Dutchman on the frozen canals of Holland? Even, perhaps, an ancient Roman soldier in a far-flung province of the empire? What we do know is that the game took root and flourished in Scotland on the springy seaside turfs known as links land.
The first golf courses emerged from those seasides naturally at first, and then, as the game progressed, they were helped or hindered by man and his machines. The first designers were Scottish professionals. Old Tom Morris of St. Andrews was one of many who reworked nature and, in some cases, designed new courses. He passed his knowledge on to his assistants, one of whom, Donald Ross came to America, and, like a golfing Johnny Appleseed, sprinkled golf courses across the United States. However, the father of American golf architecture was not Donald Ross. He was Charles Blair Macdonald who learned the game while a student at St. Andrews University under the tutelage of Old Tom Morris. Macdonald was a fine player, the driving force behind the formation of the United States Golf Association and a talented course designer. In 1911 he was putting on the finishing touches on the National Golf Links of America on eastern Long Island when he was visited by a young man named Hugh Wilson.
Mr. Wilson was a former captain of the Princeton University golf team and had been chosen to design a new eighteen-hole golf course for the Merion Cricket Club in suburban Philadelphia. Wilson sought advice from Macdonald. Apparently, the advice was good for Hugh Wilson, without any previous design experience, brought forth Merion’s East Course, a design that nearly 100 years later remains classic, challenging, and enduring.
The course opened in 1912 at the beginning of the Golden Age of American golf architecture that lasted until World War II. A lot of glow from that Golden Age came from the Philadelphia area and the Philadelphia School of golf architecture. Hugh Wilson was a member of that incredibly talented group, all good amateur golfers, none of whom would take money to design a course lest they lose their amateur standing. Along with Hugh Wilson was George Crump, George Thomas, A.W. Tillinghast and William Flynn.
It is quite possible that many golfers have heard of A.W. Tillinghast and his great designs at Winged Foot, Baltusrol and Bethpage; or of George Thomas and his legacy of Riviera in Los Angeles, and of George Crump, the instigator and force behind Pine Valley Golf Club. But, whom, pray tell, is William Flynn? Thanks to the brilliant research of Wayne S. Morrison and Thomas E. Paul, You are about to find out.
William Flynn, like many before him, left his native Massachusetts to find his true calling in Philadelphia. He was an excellent amateur golfer who had competed against Francis Ouimet in high school. He came to the Philadelphia area to help in the construction of Hugh Wilson’s East Course at Merion. He remained in Philadelphia until he died in 1945. He and Wilson became great friends and collaborators until Wilson’s untimely death in 1925.”
