Tee to Green: Wayne Stiles' course
designs spread across
Massachusetts
By Richard Lord, Berkshire Eagle Staff
POSTED: 09/15/2013 12:00:42 AM EDT
When I landed in the Berkshires four years ago and started to familiarize myself with the
golfing landscape, I thought I had a grasp on the great names from the so-called Golden Era
of golf course architecture.
I was familiar with Donald Ross, Charles Blair McDonald, A.W. Tillinghast, Seth Raynor
and Dr. Alistair McKenzie, to name a few from those years before the Great Depression. But
Wayne Stiles?
To be honest, I had never heard of him, but as I put together the Eagle’s annual golf guide
his name kept popping up -- he’s credited as the designer of Taconic Golf Club, Wahconah
Country Club, the Country Club of Pittsfield and Pontoosuc Lake Country Club. That’s an
impressive list.
I’ve slowly brought myself up to speed on Stiles, but over the phone Friday night, with the
help of an expert, that education took a giant step forward.
Kevin Mendik, who will visit the Berkshires next weekend to take part in the first-time
"What’s Out There Weekend," co-authored a book on Stiles and has become quite an expert
on golf course architecture. Mendik’s love of golf and his job as an environmental protection
specialist for the National Park Service combined to get him hooked.
"There are several courses on the National Register, so my work blended into an interest in
golf course architecture," Mendik said. "I’ve been around golf for 40 years but only got
interested in the architecture about 15 years ago. Now it’s an out-of-control hobby."
He even plays using the hickory-shafted clubs of the era, "so I get a truer sense of what they
were building for. They weren’t planning for 350-yard drives."
When Mendik joined Stiles-designed Pine Brook Country Club in Weston, "nobody knew
who he was or was even interested." That also happened during an upsurge in interest in the
Golden Era designers.
"I joined, and then I got involved with Bob Labbance, and we decided to write a book on
Stiles," Mendik said. Labbance was a noted golf writer and historian who passed away in
2008.
It turns out Stiles has probably had as much of an impact on Massachusetts golf as the
revered Ross.
"He actually has more courses in the state than Donald Ross," Mendik said. "Between the
two of them they have about 85."
It’s widely known that Ross was so busy that he didn’t visit the site of every course he is
credited with. That wasn’t the case with Stiles.
"Any course Stiles takes credit for, he was there," Mendik said. "He was a landscape artist
before getting into golf and was very detail-oriented. He was all over the place, especially
when you consider the modes of travel in those days."
Getting an exact course count for any of the era’s architects is difficult.
"Ross, Stiles, Tillinghast and others redid each other’s work on many occasions," Mendik
explained. "It was common. Nobody had a copyright."
Adding to the difficulty of coming up with numbers is the reality that many courses wanted
to retain a big name and the biggest of all is Ross.
"Wellesley Country Club is still listed as a Ross course, but it is more of a Stiles course,"
Mendik said. "Ross built it in the teens, then Stiles worked on it in the 20s and Geoff
Cornish also did some work later. It’s understandable clubs want to keep the Ross name. It’s
part of marketing."
The Country Club of Pittsfield correctly lists Stiles as the architect after he made major
changes to the original Ross design. One of the state’s most respected courses, Oak Hill
Country Club in Fitchburg, credits both Stiles (front nine) and Ross (back).
While CC of Pittsfield and Wahconah are highly regarded, most would consider Taconic to
be Stiles’ Berkshires masterpiece. Helped by the original blueprints, renovation work by Gil
Hanse in 2008 was true to the original design, though some tees were moved back to
accommodate today’s distance realities. The work included the restoration of bunkers and
the removal of trees.
"Taconic is a great course," said Mendik, though he has chosen to play nine-hole Greenock
Country Club and Tillinghast’s Berkshire Hills Country Club on his visit next weekend. He
has a good reason -- he hasn’t played either one previously.
"Berkshire Hills is Tillinghast’s only course in the state, and that is very significant," Mendik
said.
If you see someone on either course with hickory-shafted clubs next weekend and need a
quick tutorial on its history, you’ve found the right man.
To contact Richard Lord:
rlord@berkshireeagle.com,
or (413) 496-6236.