Jack Kidwell: The Architect Behind Ohio's Public Golf

Jack Kidwell (1919 to 2001) is the most prolific golf course architect most American golfers have never heard of. Working out of Columbus, Ohio, he built or redesigned more than 100 courses across the Midwest, the vast majority of them affordable public and municipal layouts that quietly handled the daily golf of an entire region. Stymie tracks 55 of his open courses today, spread across Ohio, Florida, and West Virginia.

From Sharecropper's Son to Course Owner

Kidwell's path into golf was not the country club route. He was a sharecropper's son who picked up the game caddying. Talent showed up fast: he won the Ohio high school state championship in 1936 and 1937 and earned medalist honors at the Division I state event. In 1938, at nineteen, he convinced his family to buy Beacon Light Golf Club, a nine-hole layout on the west side of Columbus, on a land contract during the Depression. He served as the property's pro-superintendent for the next 28 years, with a pause to serve as an Infantry Officer in the Pacific Theatre during World War II.

That Beacon Light experience shaped everything he did later. By the time he turned pro in 1950, Kidwell held both a Class A PGA card and a Class A GCSAA superintendent rating, a combination almost no working architect can match. He had also rebuilt every green on the property himself.

A Design Career Built on Practicality

Kidwell completed his first 18-hole design in 1957 and turned to full-time architecture in 1959. His approach was unusual for the era. Most of his clients were farmers and small-town owners who wanted to get into the golf business with limited capital and no industry background. Kidwell guided them through site selection, agronomy, and operations as much as routing and shaping. The courses had to be cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and friendly enough to keep average golfers coming back.

The result is a body of work defined by routings that follow existing land, modest earthworks, and greens that putt true without exotic upkeep. Most of his courses look essentially as he left them, which is rare in an industry where redesigns are constant. Maintainability was the design.

The Ohio Portfolio

The center of his work sits in central and southwest Ohio. Hickory Hills Golf Club in Grove City, opened in 1979, is regarded as among his finest designs. Kidwell served as its director of golf after the course opened. Beckett Ridge Country Club in Fairfield is the stiffest test in the Stymie set, stretching to 6,857 yards from the tips at a 139 slope, which is well above what his reputation for "average golfer" courses suggests he could deliver when the land allowed it.

Public access defines the rest of the catalog. Columbus area golfers know Airport Golf Course and Gahanna Municipal Golf Course as everyday rounds. Cincinnati players head to Blue Ash Golf Course, a 6,670-yard 135-slope muni that holds up under daily volume. State park golf in Ohio leans heavily on Kidwell as well: Hueston Woods State Park near Oxford and Deer Creek State Park near Williamsport are both his.

Kidwell and Hurdzan

In 1976 Kidwell partnered with Michael Hurdzan, a young architect who had grown up playing at Beacon Light and worked for Kidwell as a teenager. The firm Kidwell and Hurdzan, Inc. produced courses through the 1980s and 1990s and eventually evolved into Hurdzan Golf, the practice still operating in Columbus today. Their later collaborations include the Lakes Woods Course at Indian Springs Golf Club in Mechanicsburg, which opened in 1998. Kidwell also mentored Dana Fry and David Whelchel, both of whom became significant architects in their own right.

Recognition

The American Society of Golf Course Architects elected Kidwell in 1972, and he served as ASGCA President in 1979 and 1980. The Golf Course Association presented him with its Award of Merit in 1984. He never had a famous last name and never won a major, and he did not need either to build the largest body of public golf any single architect has produced in Ohio.

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