Tom Bendelow

One would think the answer to this question would be one of the household names in golf design - Donald Ross, Robert Trent Jones, maybe even Jack Nicklaus.

And while all three of these men have worked on hundreds of golf courses in their own right, they will never catch Tom Bendelow.

"There’s an argument to be made that Tom Bendelow had as much of an impact in bringing golfers of all abilities to the game of golf as any golf architect in history," said Andy Staples, a modern-day architect who has renovated, restored and consulted on multiple Bendelow courses.

Born in Scotland, Bendelow emigrated to the United States in 1892 and worked for the New York Herald newspaper and the sporting goods company Spalding, which would give him his start building golf courses in and around New York City.

From the late 1890s until his death in 1936, Bendelow would lay out more golf courses than anyone before or since, with some estimates of his portfolio reaching as high as 800 courses strong. A 1916 Sacramento Bee article credited him with having laid out 80% of the golf courses in America at that time. The bulk of his work is located in the Midwest - Bendelow lived and operated out of Chicago - but he designed courses as far afield as Florida, Southern California and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

As busy as he was, it is no surprise that Bendelow touched all levels of the game over his career. He laid out all three courses at the private Medinah Country Club in Chicago, whose No. 3 course has hosted five major championships, plus the 2012 Ryder Cup. He also laid out the South Course at Olympia Fields Country Club, the shorter but reportedly more charming companion to the U.S. Open-hosting, Willie Park, Jr.-designed North Course.

It might be said that Bendelow was American golf's original 'Munaissance man.' His most lasting contribution to the game lies in the shot in the arm he gave golf at its grassroots levels. He designed scores of courses that helped convert the game from the province of the privileged to a pastime for the blue and white collar over the course of the 20th century. New York's Van Cortlandt Park, known as America's first municipal course, received design updates from Bendelow in 1899. Both Baton Rouge, Louisiana's and Denver, Colorado's City Park golf courses, laid out by Bendelow, are on America's National Register of Historic Places.

Herein may lie the reason why Bendelow is less well-known than contemporaries like Donald Ross, Seth Raynor or A.W. Tillinghast. With limited resources and time, his efforts yielded many unspectacular but nevertheless functional courses. Over the decades, many of them have provided solid canvases where latter-day architects have added their own touches. That includes world-famous courses like Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, where in 1913 Ross vamped on an initial Bendelow layout to create the course that now hosts the PGA Tour's annual Tour Championship.

Elsewhere, there are still many well-preserved courses where golfers can enjoy Bendelow's sturdy hole layouts, often punctuated by surprisingly interesting greens. The University Club of Milwaukee's curvaceous putting surfaces add considerable character to the course routing, while the same is true of the tucked-away Grand Beach Golf Course in southwestern Michigan. A round there is a rare walk back in time at a 1912 gem of a nine-holer that can be played for less than $15.

Any student of golf history should delight in discovering the work of this important figure in the game's development in America. Until he is enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame, he should be considered criminally underrated.

-- Tim Gavrich