Bill Amick: Long calling for short

Not every golf architect becomes a household name, but all who have been in the profession for any length of time have interesting stories to tell.

Bill Amick became a golf designer in the 1950s, and set up his own practice in 1959. Since then, he has designed more than 75 golf courses, several of which hosted PGA Tour events. Amick became a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) in 1966, the same year as Pete Dye, and he is still a regular at ASGCA meetings, though he is retired.

One might call Amick a journeyman golf architect. Yet his story is fascinating; a child of the Depression who discovered golf as a youngster and made it his career. It helps that he is a charming and garrulous man; few can have spent time with Bill and not left the conversation smiling.

“My father was in the US Army during the Second World War,” he says. “His last duty assignment was at a camp near Durham, North Carolina, where I attended one of Byron Nelson’s 11 straight PGA Tour victories in 1945, at the Donald Ross-designed Hope Valley CC. Also near there was a municipal course where I played my first round of golf, and became hooked on the game.

“After my father was discharged, we returned to Columbus, Ohio, where I caddied and then had a junior membership at the Donald Ross-designed Wyandot municipal course, previously Wyandot Country Club. I played on my high school and college golf teams yet had no idea what I wanted to do as a future career. That is until I was in my Ohio Wesleyan University’s infirmary as a junior with the flu. There to pass some time I picked up a copy of an old New Yorker magazine containing an article about Robert Trent Jones. Reading it, either despite or perhaps because of my temperature of 102 degrees, I immediately decided that’s what I wanted to try to do as a career. After graduating I obtained a USGA graduate assistantship in turfgrass management at Purdue University. Then I served my required active duty in the US Air Force, where one of my duties was being in charge of the maintenance and operation of the Eglin AF base’s golf course in Florida.”

Amick started his career working for golf architect Bill Diddel. A native of Indiana, Diddel designed several hundred courses, mostly across the Midwest, during his long career; he was one of the 14 founding members of the ASGCA and served as the organisation’s president twice. Amick then spent a few years working for a course designer/contractor, supervising course construction, before deciding to hang out his own shingle in 1959. Even in the go-ahead times of the Fifties in America, this was a brave move. “I didn’t really know if I could earn a living designing courses,” he says. “But I told my wife – only partly in jest – that even if she and I starved, I could still say that I once called myself a golf course architect. Fortunately, I obtained several courses to design, initially in northern Florida and a couple of other southeastern states – so she and I did survive! And following those I begin to obtain other courses elsewhere to design.”

In the years between the creation of his practice and his effective retirement three years ago (more on that later), Amick kept busy. He recalls his career with affection. Asked which of his courses he likes best, he is evasive. “I assume most golf course architects get asked that question, and I assume others have given a similar answer,” he smiles. “Like parents with multiple offspring, I tended to say that I liked each course equally. But obviously, you know that some turn out somewhat better than others due to their site, budget and other vital matters. And certainly, some receive a lot more publicity than others. Killearn CC in Tallahassee, Florida, eventually held more than 20 PGA Tour events and four LPGA tournaments, which led to a good bit of recognition. And it is on a near ideal site, plus I had the freedom to route its holes from a larger total area. Perdido Bay hosted ten PGA Tour Pensacola events and the Vineyards CC South had four men’s Senior PGA Tour tournaments. In contrast, Blackstone Golf Course in rural northwest Florida, which got less publicity, had what most course architects would agree is almost ideally contoured land for a course. Plus, I was also given the freedom to use whatever land necessary for routing and constructing the best course that I could.”

But if Amick is known for anything, it is probably his long-term advocacy for shorter golf courses, something he has been talking about for many years. To this day, an article he wrote years ago about building par-three courses continues to get traffic, and he says that, retired and in his nineties though he may be, as a result he still gets approached to discuss such projects – which he generally refers to a local ASGCA member, sometimes keeping a watching brief over what transpires.

How did he come to advocate for shorter courses in an industry that, for much of his career, has glorified length and difficulty? “I was hired to design a nine-hole course on a small site in the tourist area of Fort Walton Beach in northwest Florida,” he says. “After opening, it almost immediately became very popular with entire families of tourists to that area. Around and around family members would go with enthusiasm on that small course! That certainly indicated and even proved to me that large, long, demanding and costly courses should not be considered as the only type of layouts for golf which are ever desired.

“I believe a new game based on golf could be developed on much smaller and all round less expensive courses. This concept was initially envisioned during the Great Depression by Bill Diddel. He told me of his attempt to have the City of Cincinnati develop a couple of such courses in their parks. Those were to have much lower costs than conventional-sized golf courses. He attempted to get several golf ball manufacturers to develop a limited-distance ball, but none were able to produce one that was satisfactory at that time.

“The Pointfive Golf Company now makes such courses and a game possible with a suitable ball it produces and markets. I have no financial interest in, nor do I profit in any way from the company. I simply believe as long ago Mr Diddel did that a smaller game on suitable courses could have benefits to its future players, plus those course owners and operators. Now that can be done, played with the Pointfive ball.

“This could create another sport, just as from baseball came the simpler and mostly amateur sport of softball. In my country there also is flag football, a physically safer sport than American tackle football. And more recently there is pickleball, a somewhat less physically demanding sport than tennis but with some generally shared features.”

Amick notes the recent shift towards shorter courses. “During its early years, golf was mainly an adult man’s game, and so called ‘full-sized’ courses were most of what there was to play and so were played. I guess that became established as where and how golf should be played. Only in relatively recent times has much interest and emphasis been placed on any other kinds of courses. Then finally there became more attention and encouragement from existing clubs and courses to bring more young people into golf. Most in the golf industry know that there has been a change in recent decades. And most of us hope that continues and grows! And the creation of suitable multiple sets of tees by course designers has made even more ‘full-sized’ courses more suitable for play by all. That has helped to bring more people into golf.

“I have no doubt that many large, demanding and, yes, costly golf courses will continue to be popular and much publicised. There is a desire and demand for those. For a long time during my career, I have believed that many, many ‘kinder’, easier and less costly courses are justified and will continue to grow in popularity as those attract and retain a full range of ages and types of players – at many member, public, resort, municipal, small-town and simpler public courses. And yes, executive and par-three courses will continue to grow in numbers and popularity. Plus, eventually even small courses, which will be played with a shorter ball, allowing those to be lower in cost and faster to play.

“But there is also no doubt that many current golfers will not accept nor favour those smaller courses. To some of them, that is just not golf as it should be played!”

This article first appeared in the October 2024 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.

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