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Note: William H. Neff Inducted, 2002
William Henrichsen Neff was the foremost golf course architect in Utah during the first boom of golf course construction in Utah from 1950 through 1980. He designed and supervised construction of three country club courses, Oakridge, Alpine, and Bloomington, and they remain three of Utah's most playable and enjoyable courses.
On the public side he designed and supervised construction of Bountiful Ridge, St. George Golf Club, Stansbury Park, Mountain View, the Canyon and Lake nines at Wasatch Mountain, the second nine at Davis Park, Cascade Fairways, Cottonwood Club, Fore Lakes, Westland Hills (later became Glenmoor), the mountain nine at Hidden Valley CC, the original nine at Park City, and Sweetwater.
A landscape architect for over 20 years, he shifted focus to golf in 1954 when he helped implement architectural changes to the Salt Lake Country Club under direction of architect William P. Bell. He also worked with architect Ralph Plummer and contractor Enoch Smith in the redesign at The Country Club in 1960 when the interstate was built through the club.
He became the on site contractor for architect William F. Bell in the construction of Riverside CC. In that capacity they became a team and built the second nine at Bonneville, and the courses at Mountain Dell and Rose Park. He then ventured out on his own and became Utah's premier home-grown golf course architect until he retired.
He was one of the early members of the American Society of Golf Course Architects and helped write the by-laws for the organization and reorganize it into a professional and purposeful structuring. He invented a lawn-planting machine to seed many of his projects. He was a nurseryman and enjoyed growing trees and plants. He was proud of his landscape architecture work at the Los Angeles LDS Temple.
His long time aide, Doris Taylor, said, "Bill was an artist. The earth was his canvas, trees and flowers were his palette, and cranes, trucks, front loaders, rakes and shovels were his brushes."
He was born September 22, 1905 and died March 24, 2001. He married Elizabeth (Betty) Leggett and they had two daughters, Carolyn Dunn and Diana Gouge. He attended the University of Utah and graduated from the American Landscape School in Des Moines, Iowa. He was a member of the LDS Church and first president of the Holladay Lions Club. He was also a member of the Sugarhouse Rotary Club and president of the Utah-Idaho Nurseryman's Association. He was also a long-time member of the board of the Red Butte Garden and Arboretum. His architectural work and drawings are archived at the University of Utah.
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http://www.fairwaysmag.com/wf02_halloffame.html
A Hall of Fame is usually reserved for athletes at the end of their careers, but golf is a different kind of game.
Only in golf are "rookies" 50 years old, and only in golf could someone like Bruce Summerhays discover a whole new life after raising eight children and working for nearly three decades as a club professional. So when Summerhays is inducted into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame on April 22 at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, nobody should assume he's being rewarded at the end of his career. It's just that he already has done enough to demand inclusion.
The first full-time, active player to be inducted, Summerhays will join amateur stars Arlen Peacock, Joe Bernolfo and Marge Fillis and golf course architect William Henrichsen Neff in the Utah Golf Hall of Fame's fourth class since its founding in 1991.
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Neff's golf courses have no signature features and will never make anybody's list for "greatness." His work was plain and simple - by design.
The Salt Lake City architect died last last year at age 95, savoring his involvement with 30 courses in and around Utah. Examples: Bloomington CC, Alpine CC, Wasatch State Park GC, Oakridge CC and Bountiful City GC.
Interviewed just before his 90th birthday, Neff shook his head about course rankings. "If a course is so difficult that people can't play it, it's a 'great' golf course," he said. "It's terrible to have impossible holes that you can't play at all. You have to design a golf course to fit the people that play it."
Not related to William Howard Neff, Salt Lake's other major designer, Bill Neff was a landscape architect at heart. As part of that interview, he directed a tour of landscaping projects in Holladay - including his own yard, complete with putting greens.
He moved into golf after working with William P. Bell on reconstruction of The Country Club as a club member in the early '50s. After supervising construction of three other Bell projects, he went on his own, starting with Alpine CC.
Neff laughed while telling stories and easily recited details and hole numbers of his course designs and remodelings, waving his hands and speaking animatedly. In his last years, he wished he could find more time to play golf.
He also said, "I wish I were 20 years younger, so I could do 20 or 30 more courses."
Kurt Kragthorpe is the sports editor of The Salt Lake Tribune and a frequent contributor to Fairways magazine.
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Name Birth Death Last Residence Last Benefit SSN Issued WILLIAM H NEFF 22 Sep 1905 24 Mar 2001 (V) 84117 (Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, UT) (none specified) 529-26-6016 Utah
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Golf World
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Died ... Golf course architect William Henrichsen Neff, 95, March 24 at his home in Salt Lake City. Neff helped design and remodel more than 20 courses in Utah, including Salt Lake CC and Park City GC.
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