Arthur Hills
- Full Name
- Arthur Wright Hills
- Website:
- Visit Website
- Year of Birth
- 1930
- Place Born
- Toledo, Ohio, USA
After more than 50 years in the golf course architecture business, the "Arthur Hills" name is synonymous with designs that are beautiful, fun to play, and classic in their character and strategy. With over 200 new course designs and a similar number of renovation master plans, his knowledge and experience in the profession are seldom matched. ASGCA

Arthur Hills started playing golf when he was seven. He lived just across the railroad tracks from Ottawa Park Golf Course – a municipal course built around 1900 where he could play golf for 26 cents before noon – in Toledo, Ohio.
He had no thoughts of a career in golf, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1953 with a degree in Agriculture which would be of use when entering his grandfather’s prosperous agricultural business.
While attending university, he worked at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, close to Dexter, where his parents had moved to in 1945. At the golf course, he worked as a labourer on the grounds crew for a few seasons.
He had enrolled the Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Natural Resources in the University of Michigan for the purpose of setting himself apart from other contractors and to advance his career, not to become an architect.
As Arthur said later, “what I learned at U of M provided me the tools to become a capable golf course designer because I already understood much about the game from playing and working on golf courses.”
He also studied Business at the University of Toledo without ever intending to gain a degree, only seeking to gain knowledge in that particular area, as he was working during the day in his landscape contracting business and attending classes at night.
The family sold the business in 1957 so he went out on his own that year. As he says, “golf course design just happened, just almost a whim, because I liked course design and thought I could do it. I never considered going to work for another architect".
His first design in 1967 was a course now call...
Arthur Hills started playing golf when he was seven. He lived just across the railroad tracks from Ottawa Park Golf Course – a municipal course built around 1900 where he could play golf for 26 cents before noon – in Toledo, Ohio.
He had no thoughts of a career in golf, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1953 with a degree in Agriculture which would be of use when entering his grandfather’s prosperous agricultural business.
While attending university, he worked at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, close to Dexter, where his parents had moved to in 1945. At the golf course, he worked as a labourer on the grounds crew for a few seasons.
He had enrolled the Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Natural Resources in the University of Michigan for the purpose of setting himself apart from other contractors and to advance his career, not to become an architect.
As Arthur said later, “what I learned at U of M provided me the tools to become a capable golf course designer because I already understood much about the game from playing and working on golf courses.”
He also studied Business at the University of Toledo without ever intending to gain a degree, only seeking to gain knowledge in that particular area, as he was working during the day in his landscape contracting business and attending classes at night.
The family sold the business in 1957 so he went out on his own that year. As he says, “golf course design just happened, just almost a whim, because I liked course design and thought I could do it. I never considered going to work for another architect".
His first design in 1967 was a course now called Brandywine Country Club, located in the Toledo suburb of Maumee, and he used a leading firm, Wadsworth Golf Construction Company, to build this layout, along with several others that followed.
He employed talented landscape architects, Dick Meyers and Bob Mortensen, to take his drawings and concepts and made them presentable. Civil engineer Mike Dasher was another ten-year employee who assisted Arthur, especially with on-site duties.
During the late 1960s and the following two decades, Arthur Hills worked on almost a hundred projects across nineteen states in the USA and the Brandywine course in Ohio was the first of a dozen commissions he would finish across the Buckeye State during that period of time.
Giant Oak in Temperance was his first Michigan design in 1969 and he would go on to complete another seventeen commissions across the Wolverine State during the 1970s and 1980s.
He made his opening move into Florida at the Myerlee Country Club in Fort Myers in 1972 and by the end of the following decade he had fulfilled another twenty-four Sunshine State new build golf contracts.
Into the 1990s and Arthur teamed up with Steve Forrest, with Shawn Smith joining them a few years later, so that the company now operates with all three architects providing input to the design process.
Over the span of almost thirty years, just over two hundred new construction and renovation projects have been carried out by Arthur Hills and his associates. Most of the work has taken place in Florida, Michigan and Ohio, but they have also ventured into new territories like Delaware, Illinois and Maryland.
On the periphery of the United States, Hills Forrest Smith have secured contracts in Canada, Jamaica, Mexico and Puerto Rico but inroads have also been made in Europe with Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish and Russian assignments.
Further afield, one-off projects were undertaken by the firm in both China and Morocco during 2011.
Quote from golfconversations.com in 2010:
“I have had many interesting clients. My first client was the grandson of the founder of The Champion Sparkplug Company, at the time a world leader in that business. He died in an auto accident just as we were beginning the course.
Among many notable clients was Alan Shur, the ‘button king of the world,’ a wonderful guy. He hired us to design Ironhorse in West Palm Beach, Florida. Alan grew his business from his father’s small Bronx tailor shop to supplying buttons for many in clothing design, such as Ralph Lauren.
He loved fancy cars and drove me at high speeds in one of his eight cars every time I went to the construction site with him.
Allen Shakarian, who founded General Nutrition Corporation, a worldwide purveyor of vitamins, began in a small store on a street in Pittsburgh. He bought 2,400 acres in Bonita Springs, Florida. His only direction to us was ‘Do your best,’ no questions thereafter.
Jerry Livingstone from London, Ontario made his fortune packaging jeeps for shipment around the world. We designed a course, Wyndemere Country Club in Naples, for him. Again, he was a delightful guy who just did things right.
I have been blessed with a career which introduced me to some wonderful people, and allowed me and my wife to raise a family, see them educated and enjoy our grandchildren.
Golf is a game which many more can enjoy if a formula can be found to make the game FUN, affordable, not as time consuming, although golf really takes no more time than many other recreational activities which consume the better part of a day.
Golf is a great game. It is so honest. It is up to the individual to set his standard of behavior.”
Featured courses designed, remodelled and added to by Arthur Hills
Bay Harbor (Links & Quarry)
36th
Opened in 1997, the 27-hole facility at Bay Harbor Golf Club has been delighting golfers in the Wolverine State for over a decade. Holes on the Links nine are set along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan and the Quarry fairways work their way around an enormous shale quarry.
Bighorn (Mountains)
72nd
An adventurous Arthur Hills design, the Mountains course at Bighorn Golf Club sits high above Palm Desert. It was the venue for the PGA Skins Game in the 1990s when its spectacular site made for some captivating TV golf.
Bonita Bay (Bay Island)
78th
The Bay Island course was last to open in 1994 and it’s considered to be the toughest of the Arthur Hills trio here at Bonita Bay.
Boyne Highlands (Arthur Hills)
51st
The Arthur Hills course at Boyne Highlands Resort was the last of the four 18-hole layouts to be unveiled at an impressive golf facility. Not only is it the newest course here, it’s also the longest and toughest.
Camelback (Padre)
60th
A strategic design which brings several lakes into play, the Padre course at the 36-hole Camelback Inn Resort & Spa is a Red Lawrence layout from 1970 that was substantially renovated by Arthur Hills in the late 1990s.
Catawba Island
75th
William J. Rockefeller laid out the first golf course on Catawba Island in 1928, but the course in play today at the Catawba Island Club in Port Clinton is a 2008 Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest creation, which skirts around a residential development near the shores of Lake Erie.
Chaska Town
26th
Set within a massive 285-acre property encompassing oak groves, open prairie and marshlands, the Chaska Town Course is owned and operated by the local municipal authority.
Chevy Chase
6th
Donald Ross established the 18-hole golf course at the Chevy Chase Club in 1910 but Charles Alison completely reworked the layout in 1922 and a number of architectural revisions followed down the years.
Chicago Highlands
31st
The Arthur Hills-designed course at Chicago Highlands Club is one of the many sporting amenities available at the first family-friendly country club to open in the western suburbs of the Windy City in more than 80 years.
Clovernook
70th
William Langford set out the 18 holes at Clovernook Country Club in the early 1920s and the layout has since been renovated by both William Diddel and Arthur Hills. It was also an LPGA tour stop from 1965 to 1968.
Arthur Hills Leaderboard
Rank | Name | Courses Played |
---|---|---|
1 | Cory Lewis |
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2 | David Harak |
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3 | Paul Rudovsky |
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4 | Donnie Luper |
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= | Bob McCoy |
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6 | Colin Braithwaite |
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= | Joshua Asher |
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= | keith burdette |
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= | Joseph Andriole |
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10 | Marc Bender |
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