Rod Whitman
- Full Name
- Roderick Kevin Whitman
- Website:
- Visit Website
- Year of Birth
- 1953
- Place Born
- Ponoka, Alberta, Canada
“Whitman’s work, like that of his friend Bill Coore, adheres to ‘minimalist’ or ‘low-profile’ principles. His conviction is that each site is unique, and that it is the job of the architect to reveal a site’s natural attributes; relative to interesting golf." Keith Cutten

In 1976, Rod Whitman left Ponoka Composite High School in Alberta to enrol at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where he worked towards a Batchelor of Science degree.
While studying during his three-year course at the university, he helped out with the green keeping staff at nearby Waterwood National Golf Club, under the direction of superintendent Bill Coore.
As well as carrying out his normal maintenance duties, Rod assisted with the renovation of some of the holes on the layout, which led to him learning how to operate a range of construction machinery.
After graduating from university, he returned to Canada and spent a year as the superintendent at the Devon Golf and Country Club in Alberta before heading back to the Lone Star State in 1981 to work with Pete Dye, having been recommended by Bill Coore.
Over a three-year period, Rod ran the construction crew for the new Dye layout at Austin Country Club then went back home (literally) to Ponoka to design and build a golf course for an old school friend, the former baseball player Ryan Vold.
Wolf Creek Golf Resort opened with an initial 18-hole layout in 1984 – another two nines were subsequently added by Whitman in 1990 and 2010 – and it features one of Canada’s largest hand-carved log buildings (at over 20,000 square feet) as a clubhouse.
Rod then teamed up again with Pete Dye as a design associate from 1985 to 1989 and was involved in rebuilding the greens at Crooked Stick in Indiana and renovating the course at Oaktree National in Oklahoma.
During the late 1980s, he collaborated with Bill Coore on a project in France at Golf du Médoc in Bo...
In 1976, Rod Whitman left Ponoka Composite High School in Alberta to enrol at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where he worked towards a Batchelor of Science degree.
While studying during his three-year course at the university, he helped out with the green keeping staff at nearby Waterwood National Golf Club, under the direction of superintendent Bill Coore.
As well as carrying out his normal maintenance duties, Rod assisted with the renovation of some of the holes on the layout, which led to him learning how to operate a range of construction machinery.
After graduating from university, he returned to Canada and spent a year as the superintendent at the Devon Golf and Country Club in Alberta before heading back to the Lone Star State in 1981 to work with Pete Dye, having been recommended by Bill Coore.
Over a three-year period, Rod ran the construction crew for the new Dye layout at Austin Country Club then went back home (literally) to Ponoka to design and build a golf course for an old school friend, the former baseball player Ryan Vold.
Wolf Creek Golf Resort opened with an initial 18-hole layout in 1984 – another two nines were subsequently added by Whitman in 1990 and 2010 – and it features one of Canada’s largest hand-carved log buildings (at over 20,000 square feet) as a clubhouse.
Rod then teamed up again with Pete Dye as a design associate from 1985 to 1989 and was involved in rebuilding the greens at Crooked Stick in Indiana and renovating the course at Oaktree National in Oklahoma.
During the late 1980s, he collaborated with Bill Coore on a project in France at Golf du Médoc in Bordeaux, fashioning the highly regarded Châteaux course. Rod then went back to the same resort a couple of years later to craft the Vignes course for the owners.
He followed this up with another European commission, a thousand kilometres to the northeast of Bordeaux at Schloss Langerstein Country Club in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where he laid out an 18-hole course for the Douglas family, who own the property.
In the mid-1990s, Whitman joined up again with Bill Coore – now in a design partnership with Ben Crenshaw – to work on a couple of jobs. The first of these was at Klub Golf Rimba Irian in Indonesia and the second was the 36-hole golf facility at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Rod concluded the 1990s with a 9-hole addition to complement an 18-hole course that Pete Dye had built in the early 1980s for Firethorn Golf Club in Lincoln, Nebraska. He then started the new millennium by constructing the new course at Blackhawk Golf Club, outside Edmonton, Alberta.
His shaping skills were next called upon by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw for a couple of projects on the eastern seaboard of the United States: Friar’s Head on Long Island, New York which debuted in 2002; and Old Sandwich in Plymouth, Maryland, which was unveiled two years later.
Back in Canada, Rod collaborated with Richard Zokol and Jeff Mingay to produce the well-regarded course at Sagebrush, in Quilchena, British Columbia in 2009 but the acclaim given to this layout was as nothing compared to his next two assignments.
In 2012, Rod finished work on the course at Cabot Links in Inverness, Nova Scotia, then he spent the next two years working with Coore and Crenshaw on Cabot Cliffs which lies immediately next door on the same bluffs that overlook the Bay of St Lawrence.
Both layouts are currently ranked in our Top 100 Courses of the World, which says much about the man whose skill and endeavour has brought them to such global prominence.
Rod has since completed another renovation project at St Andrews-by-the-Sea in New Brunswick for the historic Algonquin Golf Club.
In the summer of 2020, it was announced that Rod Whitman was teaming up with Dave Axland and Keith Cutten to form WAC Golf.
Extracts:
From The Evolution of Golf Course Design by Keith Cutten: “Whitman’s work, like that of his friend Bill Coore, adheres to ‘minimalist’ or ‘low-profile’ principles. His conviction is that each site is unique, and that it is the job of the architect to reveal a site’s natural attributes; relative to interesting golf.
Although Rod has been recognized as one of the finest bulldozer operators in the golf world, he maintains a ‘light’ touch when operating on a golf course site. Rod spends almost the entirety of a construction project on-site, to ensure that every detail is either personally constructed or approved.
This method allows the design process to become a fluid progression; one which evolves as construction progresses.”
From Rod Whitman's website: “Strategic design coupled with great contour – whether natural or manmade – is the essence of golf architecture. Showcasing and enhancing a site's natural attributes relative to interesting golf – contour and slope, wind angles, vegetation and views – always produces the best results. The only way to create golf courses of remarkable distinction is to allow inherent site characteristics drive design.
The world's best golf courses were not created in two-dimensions in a downtown office. While nearly every golf course development starts with preliminary concepts on paper, actual creation of a golf course should be a fluid process which evolves as construction progresses.
This is why it's extremely important for golf architects to spend an extraordinary amount of time on-site throughout construction. This is the only way we can take most advantage of previously unforeseen opportunities which always present themselves as golf holes are being shaped.”
Featured courses designed, remodelled and added to by Rod Whitman
Cabot Links
2nd



Cabot Links is located just outside the small town of Inverness on the rugged west coast of Cape Breton Island and these fairways, overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, comprise Canada’s first genuine links layout.
Médoc (Châteaux)
2nd


Golf du Médoc is located to the north of Bordeaux, which everyone knows, or ought to know, is the world capital of wine. The Châteaux course is Bill Coore's 3rd solo design, which he laid out with his design associate, Rod Whitman.
Médoc (Vignes)
7th

It’s true to say Les Vignes has had to live in the shadow of an older sibling which has hosted a French Open (in 1989) but the course is now maturing into one that’s finding its rightful position...
Rimba Irian
1st

Commissioned by PT Freeport, Indonesia’s largest gold and copper mining company, the Rimba Irian golf course opened for play in 1996...
Sagebrush
2nd

Sagebrush ran into serious financial difficulties and closed its tees for play in the fall of 2014 and was due to reopen in 2016 as a high-end pay-and-play public facility managed by Troon Golf. However in September 2017 the course closed and remained shut, finally reopening in July 2021.
Schloss Langenstein
5th

You’ll find that a round on the 18-hole course at Schloss Langenstein offers as close to a quintessential British parkland golf experience as you could ever wish for.
Wolf Creek Golf Resort (Links)
8th

A new Rod Whitman-designed nine joins forces with the existing nine-hole South course to create the inspiring Links at the ever-popular Wolf Creek Golf Resort in Ponoka.
Wolf Creek Golf Resort (Old)
6th

Rugged terrain and dramatic contours cause the Old course at Wolf Creek Golf Resort to play a lot longer than the scorecard suggests.
Rod Whitman Leaderboard
Rank | Name | Courses Played |
---|---|---|
1 | David Harak |
|
2 | Ryan |
|
= | Joseph Andriole |
|
= | Sheldon Wayne Long |
|
5 | Shawn Streeton |
|
= | Mike Commodore |
|
= | Gary Chiste |
|
= | Vishal Tulsi |
|
= | Bruce Plummer |
|
10 | Stephen Knapp |
|