Norman H. Woods, Anyone? One of the region’s most prolific architects remains largely unknown

by Andrew Penner

After playing the fabulous fifth hole at Kokanee Springs – a difficult par-4 that plunges down the hill, crosses a glacier-fed creek, and ends with a bunker-guarded green flanked by towering pines – it will be crystal clear in your mind that you’re playing a special golf course. A course of character. A course that has, like fine wine or an Old World antique, aged nicely over time. As for who designed this under-the-radar relic, well, that’s bound to be a little murky, at best.

Indeed, the architect of Kokanee Springs – Norman H. Woods – isn’t exactly a household name in golfdom. In fact, he’s virtually an unknown in the game. Which, considering he authored a couple of hundred golf courses in, mainly, the Canadian prairies and the Pacific Northwest, should not be the case.

And, for the record, many of those courses, such as Kokanee Springs in tucked-away Crawford Bay in British Columbia’s Kootenay Rockies region, are in the “exceptional” class.

Interestingly, even astute architecture aficionados, current golf course architects, and fellow golf writers were very vague on Woods. Most, in fact, knew next to nothing about him.

“I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never actually heard of Norman Woods,” said Ran Morrissett, the former architecture editor at GOLF Magazine and the founder of GolfClubAtlas.com, one of the leading voices in golf course architecture.

“I’m not familiar with Mr. Woods,” said Guy Dow, general manager of the Penticton Golf Club, a course that, apparently, Woods designed, at least in part, in the early 1960s.

But the most common sentiment went something along the lines of, “Yes, I know the name. But I don’t really know anything about him.”

A far-too-simple bio of Woods could read something like this: Norman H. Woods (1908-1987), was a prominent golf course architect who is credited with designing or re-designing approximately 250 golf courses in North America. He studied agronomy at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario. For 15 years he worked with the legendary Canadian architect, Stanley Thompson, becoming one of his most trusted and talented associates and shapers. Shortly after Thompson died in 1953, Woods started his own architectural firm in Penticton, British Columbia. Woods was a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects from 1954 to 1976. He was married and had one daughter. Both his wife and daughter died well before he did.

To be fair, there are some reasonable explanations why Woods has, for the most part, flown under the radar. For starters, many of his courses are not upper-tier tracks where he would have had a big budget and a superior parcel of land to work with. In fact, smaller community courses, 9-holers, and the like, seemed to be his forte. In fact, given that he built courses in far-flung, off-the-beaten-path places like Kitimat, Fort St. John, and Fort Benton, just to name a few, it seems as if he actually preferred to work in remote settings.

Another key factor is the era. The Golden Age Masters – such as Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross and, of course, Stanley Thompson – had long finished their timeless work. Great golf course architecture was, to a large degree, drifting in the doldrums when Woods was plying the craft. If anything, a “quantity over quality” attitude prevailed. Robert Trent Jones Sr., another Thompson protege and the leading architect of the day, can certainly take some credit for this.

Really, it wasn’t until Pete Dye and his eye-popping artistry burst onto the scene in the 1970s and ‘80s that things changed. And Woods built the vast majority of his courses in the 1960s, perhaps the least talked-about decade for great golf course architecture.

Interestingly, A.V Macan – the PNGA Half of Famer and easily the most famous architect from the Pacific Northwest and the man behind many renowned courses such as Royal Colwood, Astoria, and Fircrest – had an unsavory opinion of Woods, who had come onto the scene towards the end of Macan’s illustrious career and, certainly, would have been viewed as a competitor.

“Macan absolutely hated Norman Woods,” said Mike Riste, the PNGA historian with the BC Golf Museum. “He never gave him any credit as an architect. Macan believed Woods was just a shaper who worked for Stanley Thompson.”

Did Woods make it a habit of undercutting Macan for jobs? Were Macan’s superior playing skills and upper-class status a factor? (Macan was a champion golfer, a lawyer by trade, and his father was a knighted physician in Ireland.) It’s unclear. However, according to Riste, the thorny sentiments were mutual. “When Macan died, Woods contacted all of the courses he (Macan) designed, telling them he (Woods) would make them easier to play.”

Clearly, Macan’s opinion of Woods merely being a “shaper” is out of line. Woods was schooled and learned from one of the best in history in Thompson. Although his architectural style was certainly not as flashy and artistic as Thompson’s, he had a knack for creating interesting and strategic golf holes. And, not only that, he always seemed to find a very pleasing rhythm to the routing.

Woods preferred shorter holes, playable for everyone, and often left greens open in front for run-up shots. Not surprisingly, his shaping work, including ample (but not overdone) bunkering, mounding, and large, visually-impressive green complexes, was the work of a highly-skilled practitioner. And, most importantly, besides Kokanee Springs – arguably his masterpiece – Woods’ excellent championship-caliber courses pepper the prairies and the entire Pacific Northwest.

Falcon Lake, a cottage country classic in eastern Manitoba, is another notable course in Woods’ portfolio. It’s a peaceful, tree-lined test that, similar to Kokanee Springs, rambles through the wilderness. On a personal note, growing up in southern Manitoba, Falcon Lake was my favorite course for the first 20 years I played the game. Thousands of in-the-know golfers in Manitoba would say it’s the best golf course in the province.

The Glendale Golf and Country Club in Edmonton – yet another pretty parkland course with his stamp – is widely considered the top layout in that city. Last year, SCOREGolf Magazine, Canada’s national golf publication, put it at No. 76 in their prestigious Top 100 Golf Courses in Canada rankings.

And, perhaps the biggest feather in his cap, in Winnipeg, at the revered St. Charles Golf and Country Club, a 27-hole facility on the banks of the Assiniboine River, the three architects on record for their three nines are none other than Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross, and, yes, Norman Woods.

Although details of Woods’ character and personality are scarce, some of his quirks – and certainly his wry sense of humor – are exposed in a paper on golf course architecture he penned for the American Society of Golf Course Architects in the 1970s. “I am, God help me, a golf course architect,” he mused in his opening graph.

Throughout the 2000-word well-written but peculiar paper, Woods offers curious tidbits on a wide variety of pertinent golf issues like slow play, marshalling, pros playing for money, strategic holes vs. long holes, accommodating the incessant “topper,” and much more. At times, it reads like a whimsical rant against the imperfections of the game and the people who play it. For example, he rails on “Old Smithers,” a metaphor for, supposedly, the know-it-all codgers who reside at many of the clubs. “After all, Smithers knows a thing, or two, about growing grass,” he quips. “He is damn sure he could design and build the perfect golf course.” No doubt Woods would have run into the odd “Smithers” during his lengthy career.

But, clearly, in spite of his penchant for potshots, Woods relished the quiet life. Unlike his flamboyant boss, Thompson, and his “nemesis,” Macan, he avoided the spotlight. It appears that he lived largely alone and with his dog, Tinker, a dear sidekick who sadly died during the construction of Kokanee Springs. He buried the dog behind the eighth tee and, to honor his pal, named the hole “Tinker’s Grave.”

During the two-year construction of Kokanee Springs, Woods lived simply in the historic Murray Cabin, a small stone-and-log abode tucked in the trees behind the aforementioned eighth hole. The cabin still stands today.

Unquestionably, the entire site at Kokanee Springs was challenging; a rugged swath of rock, raging creeks, and steep hillsides densely coated with pine, massive cedar, and fir. Needless to say, Woods had a daunting task to find the ideal routing. But, by all accounts, he did. From the thrilling opener – the tee is perched high on a rocky ledge by the tiny clubhouse – to the stellar finishing run, which includes a beautiful downhill par 3, a meaty par 5 slung along the hillside, and a sweet downhill par 4 over the pond, the course is relentlessly good.

Perhaps fittingly, just like the man himself, Kokanee Springs seems to fly under the radar as well. But it is, hands down, one of the best mountain golf courses in the Pacific Northwest. If it weren’t for some infrastructure and conditioning issues over the years (mostly resolved, it seems), it would surely be a Top 100 course in Canada. If you take a lap around it, you’ll see why.

And, like me, you’ll wonder why the mysterious man behind it – Norman H. Woods – doesn’t get a wee bit more recognition for his contributions to the game.

Andrew Penner is a freelance writer and photographer based in Calgary, Alberta. You can follow him on Instagram here: @andrewpennerphotography