Nelson & Haworth
- Full Name
- Robert David ‘Robin’ Nelson and Neil Haworth
- Website:
- Visit Website
- Year of Birth
- 1951 and 1961
- Year of Death
- 2012 (RDN aged 61)
- Place Born
- Kentfield, CA, USA and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Place Died
- San Francisco, CA, USA
“What transforms a great design vision into a great golf course is our commitment to bring our experience to the site as often as possible. Critical to the process is communication between owner, architect and construction supervisors." Nelson & Haworth

The company was hit by a very heavy blow in late 2012 when founding partner Robin Nelson passed away after a long battle with ALS. Partners Neil Haworth and Brett Mogg decided to carry on with the business and to best preserve Robin’s legacy they have kept the Nelson & Haworth name intact.
Robin Nelson, Senior Partner in the Nelson & Haworth design firm, died after a long illness with motor neurone disease aged 61 in 2012. He’s survived by his wife Aniko and daughters Briana and Taylour.
As a young man, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and joined the design firm of Robert Muir Graves in 1973, where he remained for three years before teaming up with Ron Fream at Golfplan to supervise construction on golf course projects in Asia like the Tanah Merah Country Club Garden course in Singapore.
In 1982, he joined Belt Collins and Associates, a large landscape design company based in Hawaii, setting up a golf course division that became Nelson & Wright in 1987, working alongside design partner Rodney Wright until he left to form his own independent company (Wright Golf Design) in 1996.
Robin helped transform the golfing landscape of Hawaii, becoming its most prolific golf course designer with many well-respected resort layouts such as Mauna Lani and lots of other lesser-known gems to his name.
Neil Haworth attended McGill University for a couple of years then studied Landscape Architecture at the University of Guelph outside Toronto, where he graduated in 1986. He worked for a short time with Graham Cooke before leaving for Singapore in 1990 to set up the Asian office of what was then the firm of Nelson & Wright, part ...
The company was hit by a very heavy blow in late 2012 when founding partner Robin Nelson passed away after a long battle with ALS. Partners Neil Haworth and Brett Mogg decided to carry on with the business and to best preserve Robin’s legacy they have kept the Nelson & Haworth name intact.
Robin Nelson, Senior Partner in the Nelson & Haworth design firm, died after a long illness with motor neurone disease aged 61 in 2012. He’s survived by his wife Aniko and daughters Briana and Taylour.
As a young man, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and joined the design firm of Robert Muir Graves in 1973, where he remained for three years before teaming up with Ron Fream at Golfplan to supervise construction on golf course projects in Asia like the Tanah Merah Country Club Garden course in Singapore.
In 1982, he joined Belt Collins and Associates, a large landscape design company based in Hawaii, setting up a golf course division that became Nelson & Wright in 1987, working alongside design partner Rodney Wright until he left to form his own independent company (Wright Golf Design) in 1996.
Robin helped transform the golfing landscape of Hawaii, becoming its most prolific golf course designer with many well-respected resort layouts such as Mauna Lani and lots of other lesser-known gems to his name.
Neil Haworth attended McGill University for a couple of years then studied Landscape Architecture at the University of Guelph outside Toronto, where he graduated in 1986. He worked for a short time with Graham Cooke before leaving for Singapore in 1990 to set up the Asian office of what was then the firm of Nelson & Wright, part of the Belt Collins group of companies.
At the start of the new millennium, Neil, Robin and Brett acquired the Belt Collins interest in the design firm that then became Nelson & Haworth. For many years Neil looked after operations in Asia, and at one time it was reckoned nearly 10% of all the courses in China were Nelson & Haworth designs.
Neil has been a full member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects since 1999. After residing in Shanghai since 2002, he returned to Canada in 2013, leaving David Young to look after local golfing interests from his base in Hong Kong.
Brett Mogg started out in his design career as a landscape architect, working mainly in resort master planning and design for Belt-Collins in Sydney. He joined up with Robin Nelson and Neil Haworth as a golf course architect in 1992, based in Singapore, becoming a director in the company five years later.
Brett has designed courses all over Asia, from China to Pakistan, and he specializes in modern layouts like Suzhou Sun Island, in China as well as renovations and remodelling, such as the revered Royal Selangor Golf Club in Kuala Lumpur.
Brett became a full member of the Australian Society of Golf Course Architects in 1999. After more than twenty years living in Singapore, he returned to his home city of Brisbane in 2013.
Nelson & Haworth
The vast majority of the company’s American output is located in Hawaii but there are a few exceptions to that general rule, including the Creek course at Moose Run in Anchorage, Alaska; Casa Linda Oaks Golf Course in Jacksonville, Florida; and Ravenwood Golf Club in Rochester, New York.
In southeast Asia, the firm has produced around twenty layouts in half a dozen countries but it’s probably best known for the work conducted in Malaysia, where it designed both the courses at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club in the early 1990s then renovated the Old and New layouts at Royal Selangor Golf Club in the new millennium.
Further afield, there have been new build projects completed at Gunsan Country Club in South Korea (which features a par 7 hole at the 3rd) and the Defense Raya Golf Resort in the Punjab region of Pakistan. In Mumbai, India, the Bombay Presidency course was renovated in 2009, as was the Rouville course at La Vallée du Richelieu in Montreal, Canada three years later.
Around fifty Chinese commissions have been carried out in China, the most high profile of which is the 18-hole layout at Sheshen International Golf Club, host venue to the WGC-HSBC Champions tournament ever since 2005, except for one edition when the event moved to Mission Hills Shenzhen in 2012.
Featured courses designed, remodelled and added to by Nelson & Haworth
Bali National
1st

Bali Golf & Country Club closed in 2012 for a major renovation, twenty years after it first opened for play. New owners, Narendra Interpacific, reopened the golfing facility in 2014 as the rebranded Bali National Golf Club.
Bombay Presidency
2nd

Bombay Presidency Golf Club was established in 1927 and it has been described as offering “classic golf on a tight site”...

Genzon (A)
16th
Neil Haworth redesigned the original 18-hole layout at Genzon Golf Club in 2008, creating two new 18-hole tracks, uninspiringly named A and B. Six years later, the A course hosted the Volvo China Open, an event won by France’s Alexander Lévy.

Genzon (B)
36th
Originally established as the CITIC Green Golf Club, Genzon Golf Club changed hands in 2005. Neil Haworth then extended the old 18-layout into two 18-hole courses, named A and B, with floodlighting installed on the back nine of the latter which also features wildly undulating fairways and a mountainous backcloth.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
39th
Designed by the Nelson & Haworth partnership, the course at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Golf Club was voted the 9th most spectacular course in the world by one golf magazine. It's an early new millennium layout situated at 3,100 metres above sea level, making it the highest course in all of Asia, and measuring 8,548 yards it's said to be the longest par 72 layout in the world.
Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau (East)
3rd
The East is the third course at the Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau and it was designed by Nelson & Haworth in 2008. Occupying a dramatic site, it’s one of the few public courses in the world with ocean views from every hole.

Lake Hill (Dragon)
44th
The Dragon course at Lake Hill Golf Club is located at Jianshan in eastern China and it was the first course to open at the club in 2007. Robin Nelson designed the layout which measures a whopping 7,600 yards from the tips.
Lakeview Vientiane
3rd
Lakeview Golf Club in Vientiane City is a 2016 creation from the Nelson & Haworth design firm, where the architects have used the spoil from digging a series of man-made lakes to create mounding and several raised greensites...
Macquarie Links
23rd
Macquarie Links is marketed as an Australian version of a Scottish links but, in truth, the only design aspect that comes close to matching a Caledonian seaside course is the quality of the sand traps...
Nelson & Haworth Leaderboard
Rank | Name | Courses Played |
---|---|---|
1 | Kimi Hoshiyama |
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2 | James Park |
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3 | Tao Lin |
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4 | yujie ren |
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5 | Hwa Young Nam |
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6 | Scarlett |
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= | Peter Wood |
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8 | Madhav |
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= | OLIVIER VILLALON |
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= | Bob McCoy |
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