In 1915 the unexpected availability of a 20-acre parcel of land led to a decision by the club to undertake a significant modification of the 18-hole golf course designed by Tom Bendelow just four years earlier. The decision created the need for a golf course architect to design the revised course. It would seem that Bendelow was an obvious choice, but the club engaged a lightly experienced 28-year-old who was just a few years out of college. Why William Langford? One reason may have been a book published by Langford titled Golf Course Architecture in the Chicago District. Whatever the reasons, the club chose a man who would go on to become a widely recognized course architect throughout the midwest, and whose work at Park Ridge created the fundamental structure of today’s golf course.1
William Langford was born in 1887 in Austin, Illinois. He suffered from polio as a child and took up golf as part of a rehab program. He developed into a fine amateur player and was a member of three NCAA championship teams at Yale. He earned a masters degree in mining engineering at Columbia University but chose another career path. He became a golf course architect for the American Park Builders company.
Langford formed his own course design firm in 1918 in partnership with engineer Theodore Moreau with Langford focused on design and Moreau on construction. Late in his career, Langford estimated that he had designed some 250 courses and had at one time employed eighty men. The Langford and Moreau firm dissolved in the early 1940s, but after World War II Langford developed a golf course design business of his own.
William Langford’s reputation grew slowly over the years, but eventually he became recognized as an outstanding course architect. His work is reminiscent of “Golden Age” architects C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks, but he was his own man and not a copycat of others’ golf holes. One reviewer and admirer of Langford’s work described his courses as fun to play, full of variety, strategically interesting, and with bold routing on an expansive scale. Notable Langford courses include The Links at Lawsonia, Green Lake, Wisconsin (site of the 2019 Wisconsin State Amateur Championship); Wakonda Club, Des Moines, Iowa (site of the PGA Champions Tour’s Principal Charity Classic); Harrison Hills Golf and Country Club, Attica, Indiana; Skokie Country Club, Glencoe, Illinois; Happy Hollow Club, Omaha, Nebraska.
William Langford retired to Florida in the late 1960s. He died in Sarasota in 1977, just a few weeks short of his 90th birthday.
William Langford was born in 1887 in Austin, Illinois. He suffered from polio as a child and took up golf as part of a rehab program. He developed into a fine amateur player and was a member of three NCAA championship teams at Yale. He earned a masters degree in mining engineering at Columbia University but chose another career path. He became a golf course architect for the American Park Builders company.
Langford formed his own course design firm in 1918 in partnership with engineer Theodore Moreau with Langford focused on design and Moreau on construction. Late in his career, Langford estimated that he had designed some 250 courses and had at one time employed eighty men. The Langford and Moreau firm dissolved in the early 1940s, but after World War II Langford developed a golf course design business of his own.
William Langford’s reputation grew slowly over the years, but eventually he became recognized as an outstanding course architect. His work is reminiscent of “Golden Age” architects C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks, but he was his own man and not a copycat of others’ golf holes. One reviewer and admirer of Langford’s work described his courses as fun to play, full of variety, strategically interesting, and with bold routing on an expansive scale. Notable Langford courses include The Links at Lawsonia, Green Lake, Wisconsin (site of the 2019 Wisconsin State Amateur Championship); Wakonda Club, Des Moines, Iowa (site of the PGA Champions Tour’s Principal Charity Classic); Harrison Hills Golf and Country Club, Attica, Indiana; Skokie Country Club, Glencoe, Illinois; Happy Hollow Club, Omaha, Nebraska.
William Langford retired to Florida in the late 1960s. He died in Sarasota in 1977, just a few weeks short of his 90th birthday.