Dick Wilson (golf course architect)

Wilson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1904.[1] His father was a contractor. He worked as a water boy on construction of the Merion Golf Course in Philadelphia. He was admitted to the University of Vermont on a football scholarship.[2] After leaving university he joined the team of Howard C. Toomey and William S. Flynn of Philadelphia. In 1931 he supervised construction when Toomey and Flynn undertook a complete overhaul of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.[1] With Toomey & Flynn he also worked on the course for the Cleveland Country Club, two golf courses at the Boca Raton Resort (the Boca Raton Resort North Course was eventually removed for residential/resort development and replaced by the Boca Country Club, designed by Wilson protege Joseph L. Lee, (both of which were purchased by Michael Dell in 2019) in Boca Raton, Florida, the Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts and Springdale, outside Princeton, among others.[3] During the depression Wilson got a job managing Delray Beach Golf Club.[4] He was a course superintendent for a while, then during World War II (1939–1945) he worked on airfield camouflage.[1]

After the war Wilson became a golf course designer in his own right.[3] Business was slow at first, but by 1952 it had picked up sufficiently for Wilson to take on an associate, Lee, a 30-year-old graduate of the University of Miami. Wilson's style included broad fairways and large greens. He gave his bunkers a curvelinear form. In the flat country of Florida he developed a style in which putting surfaces were slightly raised, making them more visible and also helping with drainage. The axis of the green would be set at a 30% – 45% diagonal to the fairway, with a large bunker guarding the approach. Wilson's courses typically included various artificial lakes, largely to provide fill for the elevated tees and greens, but also for the sake of adding challenge.[1] His designs reflected the emerging concept that the putting surfaces should be reached by aerial approaches.[5]

The West Palm Beach Golf Course (1947) is an early example of Wilson's work, a championship course with rolling terrain and elevated greens.[6] In 1954 the Deepdale Golf Club bought the W.R. Grace estate on Long Island and had a new course designed by Wilson.[7] By 1959, when he designed the course for the Cypress Lake Country Club, he was at the peak of his career. He was known for his renovation of the Seminole golf course in North Palm Beach updating Ross's scratchy bunkers and giving them a more modern curvelinear form[1] and for his course design for the Hole In The Wall Golf Club in Naples, Florida.[5]

In 1960 Wilson did some work for the Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia. In 1960 land had been taken from the club's course for school development. Using adjoining land, Wilson designed a set of replacement holes that have now completely blended in with the original.[8] Wilson and Joe Lee designed the 18-hole course for the private Lagunita Country Club in El Hatillo Municipality, Venezuela, a relatively prosperous part of Caracas. The course, part of a real estate development, opened in 1964.[9]

Wilson died in 1965 at the age of 61.[10] Arnold Palmer purchased Bay Hill in 1976. The PGA of America moved PGA National Golf Club to a new location in 1981. Donald Trump purchased Doral in 2012.

Wilson designed or renovated at least sixty courses during his career, several of which are still highly regarded.[5] Some of Wilson's best courses,[11] many of the later ones built in partnership with Joe Lee, included:[1]

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