Tom Weiskopf

How did one of golf’s biggest hotheads turn into one of its hottest course designers?

By Kaye W. Kessler

Tom Weiskopf, his trademark white cap sitting snugly atop his sunburned dome, stands in the fairway on the par-four second hole at Adam’s Mountain Country Club, the stunning 7,181-yard private course he recently wove through the lush Brush Creek Valley southeast of Eagle. He’s about 140 yards out, downhill.

And he pulls a five iron.

“You can play any number of shots into this green,” he explains to a collection of prospective members. “Without bunkers fronting it, even a player who has trouble getting the ball airborne can get on in regulation.”

To prove his point, the 65-year-old then punches a low runner that skips, bounces and rides the ripples of the fairway, trickling onto the green and settling about a foot from the pin.

The gallery’s oohs and aahs break into vigorous applause. “You know,” he says with a wink and a smile. “I did win a British Open.” 

Yes, he certainly did—in 1973, at Royal Troon, for his only major. That was back in Weiskopf’s crazy, hazy play days when he led an endless parade of “the next Nicklauses.” He was the famed Towering Inferno, a record–baiter without a hook.

More often than not, he was where he shouldn’t have been—off the leaderboard because he couldn’t shake a bad shot; hunting bighorn sheep instead of playing in the Ryder Cup; withdrawing from the 1975 Westchester Classic when his partner and close friend Bert Yancey had a mental breakdown; chasing dollars on the PGA Tour instead of a degree at Ohio State.

His most absurd absence, however, is from the PGA Golf Hall of Fame. He belongs there. He deserves the distinguished honor a darned sight more than an earlier distinction awarded him as the awesomely talented guy with a million-dollar swing and a 10-cent head. We’re talking here about one of golf’s greatest enigmas–a guy who won all over the globe, including 15 Tour events and the 1995 U.S. Senior Open, a statuesque swinger always white-capped like Hogan but with more turbulence in his game and life than Tommy Bolt rolled into a John Daly. He was a picturesque, ball-striking figure, almost as popular and infectious to watch at the Masters as Nicklaus and Palmer, thanks to an exciting, explosive game and demeanor that did everything but bring him a green jacket. Four second-places dot a Master’s portfolio that includes 17 of 18 cuts made and some memorable peccadilloes—including carding a record 13 on Augusta’s par-three 12th in 1980.

Seconds, however, are for losers and fat cats with outrageous appetites. But today Tom Weiskopf is swinging through a second time in life: He’s an older, wiser and more laid-back Tom Weiskopf, still doing it his way but with no flares or flare-ups. The new Tom Weiskopf is forging his way into the upper echelon of golf course design, unobtrusively taking his place in the upper atmosphere of elite, in-demand golf course architects with a glint in his eye and a brilliant après-golf life out of the headlines.

Shortly before last summer’s Adam’s Mountain event, Tom remarried, and to celebrate he and his bride, Laurie, invited about 300 of their closest friends to their place in the wide-open spaces outside Bozeman, Mont., where they live  when they’re not in Scottsdale. The Ohioan is a man of the West now. Stealing a few minutes of his time, I found a more confident, content and self-satisfied man than the carefree kid who breezed onto the national scene in 1965.

Considerably more fun-loving than focused, he was a free spirit possessed of demons of devilment that, among other things, prompted him to withdraw from Ohio State University in his sophomore year to turn professional. At Ohio State he played in the omnipresent shadow of Jack Nicklaus, whom he followed to OSU and then onto the Tour. It was a shadow, Weiskopf confesses today, from which he could never comfortably emerge. “You bet it bothered me. I was not cut from the same mold. I was not determined. I was not as motivated, not influenced by my father to be the greatest player of all time.”  

Nothing was ever plain vanilla with Weiskopf. He sizzled or he steamedshowing a penchant for petulance, excessive temper tantrums and precious little temperance. Then, in one short half year of 1973, he rocketed to the top of the PGA Tour star parade like a NASA spaceship, with an inspired performance like no one since Byron Nelson in 1946.

In consecutive starts, Weiskopf won the Fort Worth Colonial, was second at the Atlanta Classic, won Kemper, won the Philadelphia Open, finished third in the U.S. Open, tied for fifth in the American Classic, won the Canadian Open, tied for third at Winchester, tied for sixth at the PGA Championship, won the World Series of Golf, and won the British Open.

That’s six wins in 11 consecutive weeks, a second, two thirds, a fifth and a sixth. He earned a spot on the 1973 Ryder Cup team and was voted player of the year by his fellow pros, the Golf Writers Association of America and Golf World magazine.

“1973 no doubt was the year of years for me, as well as a tough one,” Weiskopf reflects.

“The first four months of that year I watched my father die. I flew back and forth to be with him in the Cleveland Clinic until he died of cancer in April, and I was distraught. He always believed in me and supported me. He was a trainmaster, a very quiet guy, and would get nervous and couldn’t watch me putt or hit certain shots….He and I had a conversation just before he died. It was the first time my dad and I really connected. We talked about everything. His death opened my eyes to a lot of things…not just what talent I had, but life in general. Anyway, I went back out in May, and that’s when it all began.”

Tom draws a deep breath and continues: “You know, I’m a pretty honest guy, and while it was great, 1973, phenomenal really, but it really wasn’t something I enjoyed. You lose your privacy; you lose a lot. I don’t really know how to say it. You have to admire guys like Jack and Arnold, who were great for so many years and lived through the things that I guess bothered me more, and sometimes maybe they seem to bother Tiger, too.”

While an uncomfortable relationship with perfection and popularity may have clearly defined Weiskopf’s consummate talents, it quite likely also became his albatross, a performance level or standard of exceptional, not just excellence, he expected of himself at every tournament thereafter. He won 15 times on the PGA Tour, including two Canadian Opens. He won five other world events before calling it a career on the PGA Tour in 1985, at age 43, and enjoyed a brief, successful spin on the Senior (Champions) Tour after turning 50 in 1992, wining five times, including the 1995 U.S. Senior Open at Congressional.

Few ever pranced down a fairway more elegantly than string-straight, 6-foot-3 Weiskopf, his carriage and dress every bit as immaculate as his golden arc swing. It smacked of an arrogance, which, unhappily, he also often affected when he would storm off the course following a “misunderstanding” or as a result of wretched inner turmoil that aggravated him to a point you’d thought he’d swallowed a wounded wart hog.

“There is absolutely no doubt I never got out of my playing career what I should have, and that is a real regret,” he confesses in sober reflection. “I also never was as mad at writers and photographers or whomever as I appeared to be. I really was mad at myself, mad for not playing the way I should. I let a bad shot become a bad round, and I simply was mad as hell at myself.

“I’m still that way today in a lot of things I take on,” he adds. “I cannot take mediocrity, but I’ve learned to deal with it much better. If I knew back when I was playing the Tour what I know now, I would have been a far, far happier-minded and better player.”

Rare was the day Weiskopf was not the target of the media for some smoldering flare-up, perceived indiscretion or for simply seemingly wasting the greatest God-given talent most could dream of. Much of it, he admits, was alcohol-induced.

Mostly, however, Tom was his own toughest opponent, not his fellow players or the course. His immaturity frequently overwhelmed him, and when things went wrong, he’d get worse. He discovered that when battling his own demons, he was over-matched. “I would hit a gorgeous shot which would land on the green and backspin into a trap that hadn’t been raked, and I would brood about that all the way to a 76. In fact, I know missed the cut in some tournaments I should have won.”

Maybe Tom never really knew who he was until he happily and successfully turned to creating golf courses rather than controversy. What he enjoys most now in the new chapter of life is, “the word `I’ is eliminated in the design work. You’re part of a team—mine now is Phil Smith, my senior design associate and a dandy–and there’s a lot of compassion involved, a lot of help, support and input from others than myself. When you play professional golf. it’s all `I.’” 

He grows pensive again. “It’s kinda funny. I once said my greatest satisfaction is the game of golf itself, but I’m looking around my home in Scottsdale, Arizona, and there are no golf trophies, never have been, not there or my place in Bozeman, Montana. There is a replica of the Silver Claret for the ’73 British Open in my office. Explain that. I’m serious. All my golf pictures are in a room in my home in Scottsdale I call Tom’s Tavern. I used to send every trophy I won back to the golf courses where I had won and tell them to put them in the clubhouse and let their membership see them.”                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Weiskopf the Architect is a new and brighter book. Yet even in that arena there was a chapter of discontent that once again gave credence to the premise Tom always seemed to have a bull’s-eye painted on his back. This had to do with his partnership with Hall of Famer Jay Morrish, who got Tom started on the drawing board in 1984, an association that thrived until 1994. “It was just time to go our separate ways,” Tom explains. “Jay was a wonderful technician, and we had a great relationship, one that got me off to a great start in the business. I always wanted to do more than play the game. I took a shot as golf analyst for CBS-TV in 1984 and enjoyed it, but I really wanted to do golf courses.”

If indifference and torment walked hand in glove with Weiskopf the golfer and fun off the course was always a priority, then enthusiasm and creativity in his second-life career as an architect today paints a portrait of a kinder, gentler, happier camper.

To the accompaniment of great acclaim but no self-grandiloquence, he quietly has become a Paul Bunyan in an architectural society fraught with high-rollers like Nicklaus, Fazio, Norman and the Jones boys. Two years after splitting with Morrish, Weiskopf was Golf World’s Architect of the Year. He cites Alister MacKenzie’s work on Ohio State’s Scarlet Golf Course as his inspiration and unabashedly stamps Loch Lomond outside Glasgow, Scotland, unqualified tops of the 100-plus courses he has his imprint on. He shies at rating others. Loch Lomond–a top-100 worldwide-was one of the 25 he and Morrish collaborated on, and it was the first American-designed course in Scotland.

Six Colorado courses bear his mark, including Adam’s Mountain. All are recognized as outstanding and include The Ridge at Castle Pines North in Castle Rock, Eagle Springs in Wolcott, Flying Horse in northern Colorado Springs, Catamount in Steamboat Springs and Grandote Peaks in La Veta. Seven of his courses rank in Golf Digest’s latest top 100.

Among his other favorites in the United States are Forest Highlands in Flagstaff, Seven Canyons in Sedona, Snake River in Jackson Hole; Double Eagle in Galena, Ohio; The Rim in Payson, Ariz., and Forest Dunes in Roscommon, Mich.

He’s wrapping up the second course at Black Rock in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, alongside one already in play by Colorado’s Jim Engh, and he’s tied even tighter to the Yellowstone Club at Big Sky, Mont., owned by Oregon lumber baron Tim Blixseth. He’s finished two high mountain courses there, and as part of Blixseth’s Yellowstone Club World venture  will serve as architect on up to 10 additional courses—in Scotland, Spain, Mexico and elsewhere. Tom also has completed courses in South Africa, Japan and the Philippines and has others underway in Hawaii, Portugal, Italy and China as he expands his own world.

So do Weiskopf’s accomplishments as a player and architect warrant induction into the Hall of Fame? “It would be nice,” he allows with a smile. “But I did win only one major and 15 on Tour. I’m sure others have done more.”

As to what the future holds, he says he’s “committed to design work. When I lose my enthusiasm for business, when I personally cannot always be involved as I have been, that’ll be it. But that’s way down the road.”

Although he’s now at peace with himself, Weiskopf still has “maybe more than a few regrets.”

“Anyone who’s honest has them,” he admits. “It’s easy to be very critical of yourself because no one knows you better than you–and I was more critical of myself than the writers, if you can believe that.” Frame that thought.

Weiskopf says he also regrets not completing college, maybe majoring in or studying agronomy. “I mean, I was given a scholarship,” he says emphatically, “an opportunity to go to a great school with a great golf coach, Bob Kepler, and I should have finished. Period!“

“My second big regret was letting alcohol influence me the wrong way,” he continues with great conviction. “I haven’t had a drink since Jan. 2, 2000. None. That is a huge regret. I knew I had a problem, and I couldn’t stop. At that time. Then I did–and I didn’t go to any `spin dry.’ I just flat quit.”

Tom’s reflections gnaw at him. “Why I couldn’t quit when it was a problem for me when I played, why I couldn’t motivate myself stronger and set higher goals—it’s all about the mind. It was my makeup. It wasn’t the most important thing in my life, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I was pretty much very stubborn.” Another smile and a shrug. “I have eliminated a lot of that. As you get older you learn how to change and acknowledge things, things you obviously missed when you were younger and when they may have counted more.”

Still doing it his way, he shrugs, smiles and quotes Ol’ Blue Eyes: “Regrets I’ve had a few, but I did it my way—and what the heck, I always was good copy.”

Know It From Adam’s 

When the froth returns to the Vail Valley market, Adam’s Rib Ranch, which opened last year, will be in lights. Founder and owner Fred Kummer snagged this spectacular land a long time ago with big ideas. Like many big ideas, they’ve been sized down, but the result nevertheless will be a stunning, 1,600-acre, über-private golf, equestrian and outdoor sports community. Five miles up Brush Creek Valley from Eagle, ideally located only 15 minutes from Eagle County Airport and not too far from the slopes, Adam’s Rib Ranch offers splendid isolation luxury on the outskirts of town.

Kummer made a brilliant choice in selecting Tom Weiskopf to design his golf course. He got Tom—his time, focus and intuitive artistry—not just his imprimatur. Weiskopf’s gift is his ability to let good land lead the dance, and to combine classic design with an understanding of who is going to play a course…how and why.

The Adam’s Mountain course winds its way gently up, down and through this marvelous valley terrain, with magnificent vistas and a substantial variety of hole layouts and possible shots. True, it’s “cart golf,” and scratch golfers may find it a bit too kind and gentle…especially the front eight, which sit higher up on the valley’s side—open, melodious and welcoming—devoid of tricks and gimmicks (save for the Riviera bunker on the third green) and serious punishment for weak shots.  

Lest the golfer get too loose, Weiskopf turns the heat up on the back 10 as he takes you down onto the valley floor and introduces a tighter, rougher-hewn look featuring Brush Creek. Here golfers will encounter more strategic issues and sharper teeth. The long, par-four 11th, with a forced carry to the green, precedes a heavily bunkered par-three 12th and drivable par-four 13th. A pond runs along the entire starboard side of the dogleg-right par-five 17th, and while one might question the wisdom of making the par-four 18th the No. 1 handicap hole, it is a true brute—and a great hole.

Weiskopf’s style requires good land. Adams Mountain Country Club gave him that, and he returned the favor with a scenic, genuinely enjoyable, classic and classy mountain layout. And the cottages and the jaw-dropping 40,000-square-foot clubhouse are now open for business. adamsribranch.com; 888.760.2326 —Jim Noyes