Architects

Named after his father, Arthur Vernon Macan Jr. was born in Dublin. Macan Sr. graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in medicine and learned all too quickly about surgery while on the battlefield serving in the Prussian Army as a field doctor.

“A.W. Tillinghast, known in his day as “Tillie the Terror”, was as outstanding golf architect, and also one of the most colorful characters in the history of golf,” wrote Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten in The Golf Course. “The only child of a wealthy Philadelphia couple, Tillinghast was a spoiled, pampered youth. He ran with a local gang of boys – called The Kelly Street Gang – who seemed bent on engaging in the most scandalous behaviour that could be attempted in the late 1890s.

Alex Russell was descended from the Russell family, who were farmers in the Kingdom of Fife during the 18th century, and he was the first child of Philip Russell and Mary Gray (“Cissie”) Guthrie. Both his parents were golfers at Geelong and Royal Melbourne golf clubs.

Alice Dye, born Alice Holliday O’Neal in Indianapolis, left Shortridge High School to study at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where she first met her future husband. She then graduated with a Batchelor of Science degree in Zoology in 1948 before marrying Pete Dye a couple of years later then moving back to her home city with him.

Educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield before commencing medical studies at Caius College, Cambridge in 1888, Alister MacKenzie graduated from university with a couple of degrees in 1897, by which time he was already working in his father’s general medical practice.

Allan Robertson was born in the Auld Grey Toon of St Andrews at a point in history when golf was beginning to captivate the imaginations of well-heeled gentlemen. Robertson was the pre-eminent club and feathery ball-maker of his time, inheriting his grandfather’s business from his father.

Archie Simpson was born to brick masons and weavers in Earlsferry in Fife in 1866. “Though the world of golf in general may have been but a small one in 1870,” wrote Bernard Darwin in James Braid’s biography, “Earlsferry was a very busy little golfing world on its own account… There were doubtless some who were fine golfers though little known outside their own parish, but there were other’s who carried the fame of Earlsferry far and wide, in particular the Simpson family, six brothers, headed by Jack and Archie.”

Arnold Palmer’s father Deacon was the head professional and green keeper at Latrobe Country Club in Pennsylvania so the young Arnie grew up in a golfing environment, helping his father about the club. He attended Wake Forest College in North Carolina but left in 1951 to enlist with the US Coast Guard, where he served for three years.

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.

Bernhard von Limburger learned the game of golf in Scotland as a young boy and joined the local Gaschwitz Golf Club near his hometown of Leipzig. ‘Limmy’, as he was nicknamed, soon became an excellent amateur golfer, winning the German Amateur Closed Championship three times between 1921 and 1925, and he went on to represent Germany thirty-five times in international golf competition.

Bob graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in Art in 1961 before serving with the military at Fort Richardson in Alaska. During his term of service, he earned a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Alaska through an Army extension program then moved back to Miami with his wife and young family.

Bob Grimsdell left his native England when he was a teenager and travelled to South Africa. He joined the South African armed forces and was subsequently deployed to France during the First World War, holding a commission in the Royal Air Force until 1920. After hostilities ended he moved back to England, married, and became the professional at Chorley Golf Club in Lancashire.

Bob Harrison was educated at St Ignatius College in Sydney before graduating from the University of Sydney with a degree in Civil Engineering. His final year thesis was written about a golf-residential project for the Lend Lease Corporation and he spent more than a decade with that company on golf-residential work and commercial project management.

Brian Silva’s father, John Silva, was a feature shaper who was really handy operating a D4 bulldozer in the light construction business. Brian was only 8 or 9 when he was sitting on his dad’s lap while he worked on projects for architects like Geoff Cornish, George Fazio and Phil Wogan.

In 1872, aged sixteen, Charles Blair Macdonald sailed from Chicago across the Atlantic on a paddle steamer to live with his grandfather in St Andrews to study at the Auld Grey Toon’s University. He quickly became adept at the game of golf and within a year he played in matches with Old Tom Morris and his son Young Tom. His fond reminiscences are chronicled in his book, Scotland’s Gift – Golf.

Hugh Alison, as he was known to his friends, was educated in Worcestershire at Malvern College before going on to study history, law and divinity at New College, Oxford. He represented the university in the 1903 and 1904 Varsity matches and in the second of these contests, he famously pitched onto the 18th green at Woking from the clubhouse verandah roof.

Donald Steel wrote a story for the Sunday Telegraph with Ken Cotton, who subsequently became his senior partner. He was building two courses – St Pierre and Ross-on-Wye – in the early 1960s, so he went to both locations and wrote a piece about building new golf layouts, which he found absolutely fascinating.

Cecil Hutchison was educated at Eton College, Windsor, where he excelled at a number of sports. He played cricket for the school then went on to represent the Household Brigade and turn out occasionally for Marylebone Cricket Club between 1898 and 1904.

Cabell Robinson was born in Washington DC and grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. He attended the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virgina then enrolled at Princeton University, graduating with a degree in history. He went on to study landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, becoming friends with another student, Rees Jones.

Charles Redhead was born in Leicestershire and moved over several county boundaries to Lancashire before leaving England for the Emerald Isle prior to the outbreak of the First World War.

Bill Coore grew up in Davidson County, North Carolina, just thirty miles south of Winston-Salem, where he spent his college years playing golf at Old Town Club, the home course for Wake Forest. After graduating in 1968 he started his career in golf architecture working on course construction for Pete Dye in the South Atlantic region.

Dan Soutar was the second eldest in a large family of eleven so he was more or less forced to leave school early at the age of 12 to earn a wage and support his siblings. He caddied at Carnoustie then apprenticed at 14 as a cabinet-maker.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Dana was educated at the University of Arizona from 1980 to 1983, where he studied Business. Playing for the men’s golf team, he shot a course record 64 at Randolph Park Golf Course in Tucson then set another course record while home in Kansas City between semesters with a 62 at Minor Park Golf Course.

Dave Thomas was the son of William Thomas, a mining engineer from Aberdare who also played full back for Wales at rugby. Bill was relocated to run mining operations in the northeast of England and that’s where Dave was born – though there was never any doubt about which country he would represent at sport, given the chance.

David McLay Kidd was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, ten miles to the west of Glasgow city centre. His father, Jimmy Kidd, was a greenkeeper at Glasgow (Killermont) Golf Club, and as a child he’d listen with enthusiasm to his father’s ramblings about golf course maintenance, while as a teenager he’d earn pocket money raking bunkers for his dad. Jimmy later moved to the Gleneagles estate where he became Director of Golf Courses.

Devereux Emmet was born into a large family of ten children, nine of whom lived into adulthood. His father William Jenkins Emmet was a keen yachtsman and his mother Julia Colt Pierson was an illustrator and painter. His brothers all became prosperous businessmen and his three sisters were gifted artists.

In 1904, Louis Sibbett (”Dick”) Wilson was born into construction as the son of a golf course contractor, helping his father as a young man during the building of the West course at Merion Golf Club.

Donald James Ross was born in 1872 to Murdoch Ross, a stone mason by trade, and his wife Lillian Campbell. Their first child had died soon after birth that same year so Donald became the eldest in the family, followed in subsequent years by three brothers and two sisters.

Donald Steel grew up as a young boy in Hillingdon on the outskirts of London during a time of bombing raids and air raid shelters. His father was a surgeon, physician and Medical Director of a large hospital and his mother was a nursing sister.

After enrolling with the University of Georgia for one year then graduating from the University of Toronto as a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture in 1981, Doug Carrick gained experience on a number of golf course, land planning and recreational projects with a couple of Toronto-based design firms.

Born in 1910, the son of a publican, Eddie Hackett is widely regarded as “the father of golf course design” in Ireland, though he never formally trained as an architect and only really became involved in laying out courses when he reached his late fifties.

Born in Sydney to Henry Wellstead Apperly and Alice Langton Apperly in 1889, Eric was known as something of a “boy champion” in his formative years, having taken up golf to help overcome ill health. He lost in his first New South Wales Amateur final in 1907 but he would go on to win the event five times between 1912 and 1930 whilst a member at Killara Golf Club then Manly Golf Club.

Ernie Els grew up in Germiston, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where he played a wide variety of sport, excelling at cricket, rugby and tennis. Indeed, his prowess with a tennis racquet was such that he won the Eastern Transvaal Junior Championships at the age of thirteen.

John Jacob “Frank” Pennink was born in the city of Delft, which lies between The Hague and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Started by Frederick George Hawtree in 1912, the firm was then operated by his son Frederick William Hawtree after World War II until grandson Martin Grant Hawtree took over the reins in the early 1980s.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Started by Frederick George Hawtree in 1912, the firm was then managed by his son Frederick William Hawtree when he joined the firm in 1938. Grandson Martin Grant Hawtree entered the family business in the early 1970s, taking over operations a decade later.

Gary Player, the youngest of three children born to Harry and Muriel Player, had a tough start in life. Tragically his mother died when he was only eight years old. Player later wrote that his sad loss “has been a means for me, as it were, to settle some unfathomable debt.”

Educated at Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, then the University of Pennsylvania, George Thomas joined his father’s investment banking firm, Drexel & Company, after completing his studies in 1894. He married Edna Ridge in 1901 and they had two children, George Clifford III and Josephine Moorehead.

Son of George and Susan Low (without an “e” at the end of the surname), George Lowe was born in the rural parish of Carmyllie, between the Angus towns of Arbroath and Forfar, and he moved with his family when he was eight years old to Carnoustie, where he quickly fell in love with the game of golf through caddying.

Gil Hanse attended secondary school at Hunter Tannersville High school in Tannersville, New York before gaining his undergraduate degree from the University of Denver. Hanse then earned a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Cornell University in 1989.