William Watson was born in his family’s Dura Den Cottage, outside Cupar in Fife, in 1860. He was the first of seven children – three boys and four girls – brought into the world by Mary and John Cobb Watson. His father operated farms and mills in the local area, spending his leisure time playing golf on the links at St Andrews, where he was a member of the R&A.

When not playing golf, Watson helped to look after his father’s flax seed mills whilst also studying at St. Andrews University. His parents often entertained visiting golfers and one of these guests was Judge Martin B. Koon from Minneapolis, who was introduced to the family by banker David R. Forgan, a former resident of St. Andrews.

The judge was suitably impressed by Watson's golfing knowledge. After returning to Minnesota, Koon and a number of influential Minneapolis businessmen met to discuss setting up their own golf course and it didn’t take them long to decide the best man to lay out their initial 9-hole course.

William accepted their invitation to leave home and set sail for the United States, boarding the RMS Etruria at Liverpool in England in October of 1898 then crossing the Atlantic to assist with establishing what became the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

This was Watson’s first American project and he would go on to design or redesign over a hundred courses from Virginia in the east to California in the west. He started out when most people in the United States knew little about the game, soon becoming known as a golfing authority.

The following is an edited extract from an article written by Marty Joy, the Head professional at Belvedere Golf Club in Michigan. Marty also kindly supplied the photo of William Watson and the clipping from 

The Country Club Magazine and Pacific Golf & Motor

The Chicago Club appointed William as its head professional in 1914, to be in charge of its course on the north side of Charlevoix, which had a good reputation for its superior routing and excellent conditioning. Watson would return seasonally to the Charlevoix Golf Club for the following twenty years.

Opposite the Chicago Club, on the south side of Pine River in Charlevoix, stood the Belvedere Club, which had started out in 1878 as a Baptist summer camp and developed into a 100-acre resort destination with clay tennis courts, a beach frontage and 90-room hotel.

What Belvedere didn’t have was a golf club so, in 1925, two large, marshy parcels of land outside Charlevoix were acquired for the purpose of building a golf course. William Watson had spent the previous twelve summer seasons in the area and his reputation as a golf course architect was known nationwide.

Indeed, his advice was requested by some of the best golf designers of the time, including Billy Bell, 

 and Sam Whiting. The Belvedere committee had only one man on its short list to design its course and that person was William Watson.

He surveyed the property, laying out tees, bunkers and greens. By the start of 1926, the design work was finished and it was time for the Lavern A. Miller Landscape Company – which had worked on other Watson projects – to do the construction.

In the summer of 1927, Belvedere officially opened and William Watson was engaged as its first professional. Watson worked at both Belvedere Golf Club and the Charlevoix Golf Club seasonally from 1927 to 1930, arriving in Charlevoix in late June and leaving for California in early September.

The stock market crash of 1929 curtailed Watson’s career and his last known design was the course at El Sobrante Golf Club in San Pablo, California that same year. He spent his later years at home in Los Angeles with his wife Ada, until his death on 2nd September 1941.

The Minikahda Club was Watson’s first American architectural design and he would go on to design or redesign over 120 golf clubs from Virginia to California. He began designing golf courses during a time period when most people in the United States knew nothing about the game of golf much less how to play or had access to golf clubs. Marty Joy, Belvedere GC Head Professional

William Watson

William Watson began designing golf courses during a time period when most people in the United States knew nothing about the game of golf, much less how to play or gain access to golf clubs.

Sam Whiting

California

Presidents Cup

PGA Championship

Harding Park Golf Course has a long history that dates back to 1925 when the course was laid out by William Watson and Sam Whiting. The names of Watson and Whiting are not naturally associated with the Golden Age of golf course architecture but their Lake course at the nearby Olympic Club is testament to their design ability.

Set to the southwest of downtown San Francisco, adjacent to the State University, Harding Park is framed on three sides by Lake Merced and the course itself is routed on ideal sandy ground. Named after the keen golfer and US President, Warren G. Harding, the city-owned municipal course hosted a number of high profile tournaments before and after the Second World War and became a regular PGA Tour venue during the 1960s.

Sadly, Harding Park fell into near terminal decline and 1998 it was unceremoniously used as a car park when the US Open was hosted at the Olympic Club. Sandy Tatum, a San Francisco attorney, led a contentious mission to return Harding Park to its former glory. A public-funded $16m restoration project began in spring 2002 and the course re-opened in the summer of 2003 to cautious but steady applause.

Tall Monterey Cypress trees frame most holes making the fairways feel extremely narrow. Small, tricky greens make scoring tough and if you have a decent card going you’ll need to focus hard towards the end of the round because Harding Park has a cracking finishing stretch that starts at the short par four 16th and continues on a high bluff before reaching the signature 18th.

The home hole is a spectacular par four with Lake Merced as the backdrop. The hole doglegs hard left on its way back to the final elevated and multi-tiered green which slopes sharply back to the fairway.

The future of Harding Park was cemented after a thrilling finish to the 2005 WGC-American Express Championship, which culminated in Tiger Woods beating John Daly in a sudden-death playoff. Top-flight golf returned to Harding Park in 2009 with the Presidents Cup, which the US team convincingly retained.

In 2010 the City and County of San Francisco passed the management of Harding Park to the Tournament Players Club of California, so the facility is now known as TPC Harding Park. The World Golf Championships - Cadillac Match Play was hosted at TPC Harding Park in 2015. Rory McIlroy claimed the WGC title, beating Gary Woodland 4&2 in the final.

The 2020 PGA Championship was due to be staged at TPC Harding Park in May, but due to the coronavirus outbreak the event was postponed until August when Collin Morikawa's flawless final round of 64 was good enough to win the Wanamaker Trophy.

TPC Harding Park

Pacific Grove

North America

Harding Park Golf Course has a long history that dates back to 1925 when the course was laid out by William Watson and Sam Whiting.