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.

His influence on the game cannot be underestimated. As 

 has said, “Eddie is the unsung hero of Irish golf. At a time when there was no money, he travelled the highways and byways of Ireland. Half the people playing golf in Ireland are doing so because of Eddie Hackett.”

Eddie had spells in hospital with tuberculosis as a youngster – he also spent nine months in bed with meningitis during the 1950s – but he took up golf as an amateur at Hermitage Golf Club on the advice of his doctor, who thought the game would be good for his health.

Starting out as an apprentice professional at Royal Dublin, he worked under legendary clubmaker Fred Smyth then ventured abroad twice in his early professional career.

He spent five months with Henry Cotton at Royal Waterloo in Belgium then a year with Sid Brews at Houghton in South Africa, before returning to Ireland to become the professional at Elm Park then the Head Pro at Portmarnock in 1939.

During the war, Eddie wrote a newspaper column in both the Irish Press and the Irish Independent and he helped to arrange exhibition matches which raised hundreds of pounds for good causes. He was an expert clubmaker but it was his skill as an instructor that was most in demand during the 1940s.

He was made honorary secretary of the Irish Professional Golfers’ Association in 1948 then retired from professional golf a couple of years later to “take part in an ill-advised business venture” with his brother which didn’t work out as expected.

After re-instatement as an amateur, Eddie played out of Foxrock Golf Club for a while then re-joined the professional ranks in the early 1960s, offering his services to the Golf Union of Ireland as an instructor, coaching the children of affiliated club members for free. It didn’t take long for him to be regarded as the leading teaching professional in the country.

It was around this time that he was approached by clubs at his teaching clinics for advice on the construction of new golfing layouts. Eddie had already set out small courses for the students at Rockwell College and Clongowes Wood College before being asked to create his first 18-hole course for Letterkenny Golf Club in 1967.

His efforts in Donegal (and at all his subsequent designs) were focused on routing holes through previously uncharted territory to come up with a challenging course that offered the minimum interference with its surroundings. Money was tight at the time, so his ability to produce a quality product for a reasonable price soon made him the architect of choice in Ireland.

It’s reckoned that Eddie Hackett was involved in more than a hundred golf projects across the country – his 100th course was at West Waterford in Dungarvan, where the Spratt family commissioned a championship-standard layout on 150 acres of rolling terrain – and although the vast majority of these layouts are inland tracks, it’s the links courses that quite rightly receive the most praise.

Links of Heaven: Golf Journeys in Ireland

, by Richard Phinney and Scott Whitley, the authors have this to say about the architect: “Every one of his links courses is enormously enjoyable, even thrilling to play, with at least a half-dozen holes that will stop you dead in your tracks in admiration.

The admiration is always as much for Mother Nature as for the architect, however. Hackett never draws attention to himself. There are no bizarre sand traps, ostentatious ledges, artificial mounds or strangely shaped greens so common in modern design.

Because Hackett’s layouts are so sensitive to the natural terrain, there is always a consistent style and rhythm to his links that takes its theme from the specific natural surroundings. Nothing seems artificial or imposed. Hackett would have been horrified to think his courses looked like one another.”

Eddie used to tell clubs not to hire him, saying: “I told them that if I was in your position, and I wanted to make some money, I wouldn’t use Hackett, I’d use a 

.” Some clubs, like Ballybunion and Tralee, did just that.

Waterville chose to bring in another American, Tom Fazio, to upgrade what Eddie had done but, thankfully, most clubs had the good sense to employ the self-effacing man who single-handedly did more than anyone else to shape the modern game of golf in Ireland.

, author Keith Cutten had this to say in his Eddie Hackett profile: “Some reviewers have lacked generosity when appraising his design legacy; levelling the back-handed compliment of ‘simplistic’ against Hackett’s courses. Yet, these people may be unaware of two important design principles that Eddie adhered to: a disdain for both ‘blind’ shots; and hidden hazards. Clearly, when eliminating those linksland elements, and working on a shoestring budget, any layout can appear non-sophisticated.”


“Over the years my very busy designing life has brought me to every corner of Ireland. The highlights of my thirty three years designing would have to be the good fortune to have been commissioned to design ten courses on exquisite links land, extending along the West Coast of Ireland:

Waterville and Ceann Sibeal in County Kerry
Connemara, County Galway
Enniscrone and Strandhill, County Sligo
Donegal at Murvagh, County Donegal
Carrigart Hotel and Rosapenna Hotel, County Donegal
Greenore, County Louth
Carne at Belmullet, County Mayo”

, published in 2002, to Eddie Hackett. An edited excerpt follows:

“I was aware of a certain aura surrounding Eddie Hackett. And having walked, photographed, and played his wonderful creations on links terrain, I increasing yearned for a first-hand telling of his experiences.

The opportunity came about in 1995 through the good offices of Stan Craig, then captain of The Island Golf Club. Stan, who was a friend of Eddie’s, phoned the great man and told him of my photographic activities and general interest in his links design work.

The upshot was that Eddie had us as guests for lunch at his home in Dublin the very next day. I was stunned: what a treat this was, to be a house guest of Ireland’s most respected golf course architect, a veritable legend in his own lifetime.

Eddie recounted how he overcame the scourge of tuberculosis during his childhood before embarking on a career in golf. Born in Dublin in 1910, he was guided into golf by his father during the early part of the 20th century, when it wasn’t easy for a Catholic tradesman to gain access to the Royal and Ancient game in the environs of Dublin.

Associates always speak or write reverentially about Eddie, making a point of highlighting his integrity and humility. There was a true sense of purpose to his golfing achievements in Ireland, in that he often had to work with modest budgets on difficult terrain. Yet at places like Waterville and Belmullet, he succeeded magnificently.

So it is hardly surprising that I should recall lunch with him as an enriching experience, especially when observing his remarkable insight and listening to his gentle words of wisdom. On all matters of golf, he conveyed the simple, clear message of a true believer.

He spoke of simplicity in design and the importance of visible fairways, hazards, and greens. In his understanding of the fragile nature of linksland, he recognised the dangers of careless earth-moving among majestic dunes.

‘I’ve been very lucky in my life, while most people never get to design a links, I’ve done ten. And when I’m out on the course, I pray to the Lord to give me the light to do what is right.’ In his varied and distinguished work, there is rich evidence of answered prayers.”

As Eddie Hackett reflected on a commission in 1970 to design the splendid Connemara links at Ballyconneely, he felt moved to remark: "They had no money, you know. I told them if you're that keen on golf, I'll go down and I'll put a stone in for a tee and a pin in for a green and you can pay me when you can."

Irish golf journalist Dermot Gilleece wrote in 

“As Eddie Hackett reflected on a commission in 1970 to design the splendid Connemara links at Ballyconneely, he felt moved to remark: ‘They had no money, you know. I told them if you're that keen on golf, I'll go down and I'll put a stone in for a tee and a pin in for a green and you can pay me when you can.’

Thirty years later, I made a return visit to Connemara to look over an additional new nine which he designed along the coast. ‘Oh, Eddie was a saint, you know,’ said Fr Peter Waldron, secretary of Connemara GC Ltd. ‘He was totally self-effacing and had more integrity than almost anybody I ever came across. And he worked for pennies.’

Hackett's response to this was: ‘I know I've charged too little all my life, but starting out, I didn't have the confidence in my abilities.’

On a visit to his wonderful creation at Carne in Belmullet, I remember being staggered by his skill, despite the constraints of a tight budget, in finding a routing through its formidable duneland. Afterwards in the charming clubhouse, one of the staff pointed to a chair and table strategically positioned for a perfect view of the links. ‘That's where Mr Hackett would sit on his visits here,’ she said with quiet respect.

Carne remains arguably the most stunning ‘discovery’ I have made in golf. Situated on the wild Atlantic, locals will tell you that on a good day by the 13th hole, ‘you can see them going home from work in New York.’ Naturally, such remarks are richly embellished for the benefit of visiting Americans.

Towering duneland has become something of a cliché in describing links courses but here, the splendour of the terrain makes the term seem almost inadequate. I suppose one's surprise stems from the fact that the site, all 270 acres of it, has been revealed to outsiders, only since the official opening of the golf course.

When one of his great mentors, Jack Mulcahy, died in September 1994, Hackett wrote me a charming letter recalling the wonderful times the two men had experienced together, building Waterville, which he described as ‘a beautiful monster’. He wrote of a phone call he had received from his prospective employer with the blunt instruction: ‘I want you to design for me the best golf course in the world.’

Though Waterville’s current well-being owes much to the upgrading skills of Tom Fazio, it remains a splendid monument to Hackett's original design. And while an enduring respect for Mulcahy was also true of all his clients, he retained a special place in his heart for the south Kerry links.

That he survived so long was remarkable in itself, given how frail he was when visiting The Old Head of Kinsale in July 1991. His objective on that occasion was to examine the feasibility of building a course there involving an outlay of several million pounds. Yet his expenses for the trip from Dublin included the item: two nights' accommodation in Kathleen Humberstone's Bed and Breakfast £34.00.

This was the sort of thoughtfulness for his clients' resources which made him a unique figure in Irish golf-course development. Money was always a secondary consideration: his prime concern was to do justice to a site at an outlay which would fit the client's pocket.

Despite fragile health from an early age, Hackett remained extremely active until his death until his death in December 1996 at the age of 86. Indeed, only two months before his passing, he travelled to Wentworth to be awarded a silver medal from admiring peers in the British Institute of Golf Course Architects. No award was more richly deserved.”

 by Richard Phinney and Scott Whitley (1996) In the introduction – under the heading “Saint Eddie” – one of the authors interviews Eddie Hackett shortly before he died.

by Fred Hawtree (2008) includes an essay in golf design in Ireland from Eddie Hackett.

Writing in The Architects of Golf, the authors commented as follows: “Eddie Hackett worked as a golf professional for nearly fifty years, beginning as an assistant at Royal Dublin… he designed his first golf course in 1964 and over the next twenty years designed and remodeled scores of Irish layouts.”

Eddie Hackett

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

Charles Lawrie

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

After moving to England, he was a pupil at Rose Hill School and Tonbridge School in Kent – playing cricket against Clifton College at Lord’s – before enrolling at Magdalene College, Oxford, where he played golf for the university from 1933 to 1935.

Once he’d completed his studies, his opted for employment within the insurance industry, which is what both Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus did in their early years.

Away from work, Frank was one of the top amateur players in Great Britain, winning the English Amateur Championship at Saunton in 1937 then repeating this feat at Moortown the following year, when he also played in the victorious Walker Cup team at St Andrews.

Unfortunately, World War II then intervened, curtaining his golfing activities, and he enlisted in the Royal Air Force, serving as a Squadron Leader. After the war ended, he became a sports journalist, writing golf articles for the 

comments about this period in Frank’s life by saying: “he became well known for his informed comment of golf, his intimate knowledge of the game and its exponents being a great advantage.”

Authors Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten then take up the story in their book 

: “In 1954 Pennink joined the established course design practice of 

. He eventually headed the firm that came to be known as Cotton (C.K.), Pennink, Lawrie and Partners Ltd.

He was the most active designer in the firm, handling courses in Britain, the Continent, Africa and even the Far East. He was a founding member of BAGCA (the British Association of Golf Course Architects) and served for a time as its president.”

 and Cameron Sinclair joined the design company in the mid-1960s and Donald told us: “Because of his connections and availability, Frank undertook nearly all the overseas work, particularly in Holland and Portugal.

His father was Dutch and Frank was a Europhile who served the European Golf Association and should have been President but that is another story.”

Frank was also heavily involved in golf administration, becoming President of the English Golf Union in 1967. He was a Walker Cup Selector for many years and was part of the backroom team when the 1971 Great Britain team won the biennial event for the first time since he’d been a player in 1938.

In an architectural career lasting the best part of four decades, Frank Pennink designed literally dozens of courses in many far flung corners of the world; from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in Asia to Morocco and Zambia in Africa.

In Europe, he laid out or renovated courses from Denmark and Sweden in the north to Italy and Portugal in the south. He also built or added to quite a few courses in the Netherlands, including extensions to the courses at Kennemer and Rosendaelsche, both of which currently reside within the Continental Europe Top 50.

His Portuguese designs at Vilamoura (Old) and Palmares in the Algarve, though modified in more recent times, also occupy similar lofty positions within our European rankings.

Frank was also active elsewhere in Europe and, according to Donald Steel, “he did much pioneering work in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.”

Within England, Pennink created or remodelled golfing layouts all the way from Seaton Carew at Hartlepool in the northeast to the West course at Saunton in the southwest.

He added nine holes to the Silverburn course at Royal Aberdeen, did the same at Castlerock in Northern Ireland (creating the much-loved 9-hole Bann layout), and fashioned the 18-hole Old course at St Pierre in Wales with Ken Cotton.

A number of “Royals” were also modified by Frank down the years, including Royal Lytham and St Annes in 1952, Royal Liverpool in 1966 and Royal St George’s in 1975.

In later life, Frank lived in Forest Row, East Sussex, close to Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club, where he worked right up to within days of his passing away in 1984.

 by Keith Cutten, the author has this to say about Frank:

“His design philosophy was aligned to that of the Golden Age architects, such as Colt and Simpson. Frequently, though, Pennink was called upon to perform when constrained by a tight project budget; heightening his sensitivity to saving his client’s money.

This reality made him focus on three aspects of design: creating simple yet effective greens, limiting the use of fairway bunkers; and creating relatively simple green surrounds.”

“His design philosophy was aligned to that of the Golden Age architects, such as Colt and Simpson. Frequently, though, Pennink was called upon to perform when constrained by a tight project budget; heightening his sensitivity to saving his client’s money." Keith Cutten

Frank Pennink

In an architectural career lasting nearly four decades, Pennink designed dozens of courses in many far flung corners of the world; from Indonesia and Malaysia in Asia to Morocco and Zambia in Africa.

Tom Craddock

Pat Ruddy was born in the small town of Ballina in County Mayo, but raised in the even smaller town of Ballymote, in County Sligo, where his father Martin (who was known as ‘Sid’) ran the local post office.

The third of five children born to Martin and Nota Ruddy, he discovered golf literature at a very young age through his father, who took the 

 religiously every week, primarily to read the golf articles of Henry Longhurst.

 Pat said: “Some people read the bible but we read Longhurst. At the time there wasn’t television so reading about this man going to the most marvellously exotic-sounding places around the world was an inspiration.”

Those articles from the doyen of British golf writers, and a library book entitled 

, were big factors in Pat becoming a golf journalist: “I had a huge fascination for the golf writer. They were the gods bringing the world to me. So I set out to be one, saving up to buy a typewriter.”

Pat started out as a freelance writer, working for golf magazines around the world, including 

, where the Scots-born editor would pay him 50 Rand for writing 100 pages. As he says: “if you went to the bank today, they’d keep it all as charges but I didn’t care as I was famous in South Africa, you see, in the early ‘60s.”

He became a staff member at the Evening Herald in 1968 but left after five years to establish the 

 magazine. He was one of the first correspondents from this side of the Atlantic to attend the Masters Tournament, paying his own way for the privilege.

“One of my early objectives was to make more money each week as a golf writer than the winner of the tournament was making in the PGA region, as it was at that time. I never saw the correlation between golf writing and poverty”.

Pat formed a group called the Homeless Golfers to draw attention to the thousands of players who were unable to secure a golf club membership at the end of the 1960s and he was instrumental in the formation of Dublin & County Golf Club at Corballis Golf Club’s old course when they moved next to Dublin Airport in 1971. Pat also busied himself in promoting pro-ams and golf tournaments, bringing Harry Bradshaw, Henry Cotton and Fred Daly in to conduct clinics that brought them appearance fees far in excess of prize money earned as tournament players.

Around the same time, Pat was involved with setting up the Irish Golf Institute, preaching the virtues of inexpensive public golf for everybody. Years later, when circumstances had changed somewhat, he became a proponent of the Irish Golf Course Owners’ Association then the Irish Golf Links Heritage Trust.

Still, he had a burning desire to own and operate his own golf course, fuelled by an article he’d read back in 1957 that Jack Burke Sr. and Jimmy Demaret were establishing their own course in Houston, Texas called the Champions Club.

Pat looked for design jobs in the early 1970s but a lack of qualifications held him back. Then, totally unexpectedly, Castlecomer in Kilkenny got in touch with him to lay out a 9-hole course which he built for nothing – the important thing was to get the first project under his belt.

Henry Cotton worked with Pat Ruddy for a while, but their partnership brought little success on the design front. Teaming up with Tom Craddock was a great move, though, and they completed commissions at St. Margaret’s in County Dublin, Druids Glen in County Wicklow, as well as Ballyliffin, Connemara Isles, Wicklow and Killeen.

Pat also got involved in County Donegal projects at Portsalon, Rosapenna and Murvagh and there was even an overseas undertaking for a couple of public layouts at Club de L’Ile de Montréal in Quebec, Canada, where the local city dump was transformed into a modern 36-hole golf complex.

He eventually chanced upon a site at Brittas Bay 1986 then spent the next six years getting a course ready for play. When he eventually opened the European Club for business on Boxing Day 1992, he sat in his car at the gates to the property and took £10 from everyone who turned up to play.

What had been a drain on resources for a number of years was now in the position to provide an income. In the years since, Pat has had numerous offers to buy him out but he’s resisted all of them, preferring to nurture and develop what he has created, rather than take the money and run.

As he says himself: “I spent from 1958 to 1988 thinking of doing a golf place of my own, from 1988 to the present trying to make it one of the best and loveliest golf courses in the world, and having achieved one's dream it is difficult to contemplate walking away and impossible to think of a very good reason why one should.”

In 2005, Pat was offered more than €35 million for the European Club from a group that planned to add a second course (designed by somebody like Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio) at Brittas Bay. His head might well have been turned at the thought of taking such a huge sum of money, enabling him to develop a fabulous links at another site in Scotland (Machrihanish Dunes and Trump International were both examined), but he decided to back off the project.

As Pat says himself, his objective is to “just concentrate on enjoying The European Club, playing a little golf and talking golf, resting in my library which contains over 6,500 golf books, moving things about when I see ways to improve the links and maintain its place at the top of the golf world.”

Edited extract from an article by Larry Olmsted in forbes.com published in 2013:

Pat Ruddy's European Club: Ireland's Last Great Links Golf Course?

The European Club has everything you could want in seaside links golf: towering dunes, salt air, wind, high rough, gorse, nefarious deep bunkers at every turn, blind shots, visual illusion, and the ocean, not just visible but omnipresent. This is one dramatic piece of land. But in addition to the natural grandeur, it’s a great routing. The flow is fantastic: it opens with a short positional par-4, followed by a short precise par-3, then my favorite hole on the course, the short, strategic and wonderful par-5 third. This eases the player into the round and longer holes to come without sacrificing any links feel, setting up a rhythm that is then amplified as the course enters the big dunes and reaches the sea.

It is also a place of passion and love for the game. The European Club was conceived, designed and is owned by Pat Ruddy, whose entire life has revolved around golf. A competitive amateur player, Ruddy went on to become one of Ireland’s most prolific golf writers and publishers, edited magazines, wrote countless articles and many books on the game (and still does), then became a well-known golf course architect.

Ruddy always dreamed of having his own course, something shockingly few golf course architects have achieved. Pete Dye founded and lives at the private Crooked Stick, a PGA Championship venue in Indianapolis, but it is not open to the public and he doesn’t own it, with plenty of other homeowners. Ditto for Jack Nicklaus and his Muirfield Village, and even these are rare exceptions. The European Club is not only public and house free, it is heavily geared towards welcoming visitors, but when it comes to running the place, Ruddy, who has an apartment over the pro shop, refers to himself as “A Committee of One.” He built the facility in his own heartfelt vision but it was a vision he always wanted to share.

On any given day he is likely to be in the pro shop chatting with visitors, though he won’t actually take your money or put your bags on a trolley - he leaves that to his sons, since this is a hands-on, family affair. Upstairs, Ruddy owns one of the largest collections of antique golf books in the world, and the clubhouse is as famous for its apple pie as the golf. Signs all around the course are witty and intentionally composed for dry humor, and everything about the place exudes personality and a highly personal touch. Welcoming and decidedly not stuffy, the European Club is different, in a good way.

: “It seems that destiny has much to do with what passes for success in this life. The impossible putts drop for the champions while they lip out for others. One man is granted a long life while another is afflicted with unthinkable suffering. Luck plays such a big part in our lives that it is silly to seek credit for all that happens. All that one does is subdue fear, take the opportunities when they present themselves and play the ball as it lies. Sometimes, if you want something badly enough it will happen!”

Rosapenna: Beyond His Lordship’s Wildest Dream

: “The beauty of a golf hole, the way it sits on the land, has a distinct effect on the golfer. It can inspire or intimidate. It can thrill, it can distract, or it can generate fear of failure. My late friend Henry Cotton, three times winner of the British Open and a man who played by feeling, always spoke of such a situation when talking of the incomparable thrill of the downhill drive! He just loved to watch that ball soaring out high over the fairway and dropping, dropping, dropping slow to the centre cut! Then came the pleasure of the slighty concealed swagger down those verdant slopes to fairway level, all the time planning the next move with the battle ground clear to view.”

: “Freedom of thought and movement must be fought for and planning must not become stiff and formulaic but retain freedom to flow with the land and events. The madness of the golf architect is total; absorbing, obsessive, relentless even bothersome; and at times exhilarating and rewarding.

He lies awake at night, looking into the darkness, solving problems with holes in progress and getting ideas forward, and he celebrates when dawn comes and life can resume.

A bout of illness magnifies this mental activity. Repeat hip surgery did not switch of the mind. Pen and paper were forever present on bedside lockers both in hospital and at home as the mind relentlessly foraged for ways of making improvements on my various current designs.

Ballyliffin: Golf’s Great Twin Miracles

“When a person comes to Ireland, they become a member of the family. Friendships are formed that last for decades. We notice a visitor and we embrace them. They are not just fodder to a business, they are very welcome. I play golf every day. I love to go down to the 12th hole at the European Club. It is beside the Irish Sea and is surrounded by high hills. It is lovely and quiet in the evening. I am like a baby with a bucket and spade in the sand. I could stay there forever.” Pat Ruddy

Pat Ruddy

Nick Faldo didn’t start playing golf until he reached the age of 14 and it’s said he only got into the game after watching Charles Coody win the 1971 Masters tournament on his family’s new colour television set. Only three years later, he was playing in the English Amateur Championship at Woodhall Spa, which was an early indication of his dedication to the game.

In 1975, he won this event at Royal Lytham & St Annes and he also triumphed the same year in the now defunct British Youths Open Amateur Championship, before heading off to the University of Houston on a golf scholarship. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out there as anticipated and Nick returned home after less than three months of study in the Lone Star State.

He turned professional the following year and over the next two decades Nick recorded 41 wins around the world; 27 on the European Tour, 6 on the PGA Tour and 8 elsewhere. Six of those victories were Majors (three Opens and three Masters) and he finished runner-up in each of the other two Major tournaments (at the 1988 US Open and the 1992 PGA Championship).

For a man who many regarded as overly single-minded and rather detached, Nick did very well in team competitions as a player, winning both the Dunhill Cup and World Cup for England. He also played in eleven Ryder Cup events (winning five), amassing 25 points from 46 matches, making him one of the most successful participants in that biennial series of matches.

Nick launched Faldo Design in 1991 and one of his first courses was Chart Hills in Kent, a co-design with Steve Smyers.

Of course, Nick was still winning big tournaments during the 1990s – he won the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge in 1994 and the Masters Tournament in 1996 – and he played in four Ryder Cups, so his early design work wasn’t exactly prolific, considering his playing schedule.

He partnered architect Stan Eby from European Golf Design to lay out the Faldo course at Sporting Club Berlin (now renamed the Faldo Berlin course at Bad Saarow) and it debuted in 1997, the same year the Nick Faldo course opened at the 72-hole Eagle Ridge Golf & Country Club in The Philippines.

Two years later, and the Faldo name was being used to launch one of seven courses at Mission Hills Zhenzen in China and this group of 18-hole layouts, along with the five championship courses at Mission Hills Dongguan make it one of the largest golf facilities in the world. Again, Nick worked in tandem with another architect, 

His first North American design break came in 2000 with the opening of Shadow Ridge in Palm Desert, California, and he’s since fashioned another four layouts in the United States: Wildfire in Arizona (2002), Cottonwood Hills in Kansas (2006), Bella Collina in Florida (2008) and Wilderness Club in Montana (2009).

Nick also designed The Rock Golf Course on the shores of Lake Rosseau in Ontario and this is his only Canadian design to date. Away from North America, Faldo Design has been engaged in several international markets during the new millennium.

In Australia, Nick collaborated with architect Tony Cashmore to produce the Creek course at 13th Beach Golf Links in Victoria, with the Barwon Heads layout opening for play in 2003. Then, in each of the following two years, he signed off on courses in China: Bejing Hongua International in 2004 then Lakeview in Kunming during 2005.

In 2006, Nick redesigned the old Wadi course at Emirates Golf Club, which was then renamed the Faldo course. A few years after this, he teamed up again with Brian Curley to produce the 27-hole facility at Katameya Dunes, outside Cairo in Egypt.

In southeast Asia, Angkor in Siem Reap, Cambodia and Laguna Lang Co in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam are two highly regarded Faldo-designed tracks that sit comfortably within our Top 100 chart for Asia and the latter was Nick’s 26th worldwide project completed when it was unveiled in 2013.

Within Europe, Faldo courses are to be found in Turkey at the 27-hole Cornelia resort in Belek, in Denmark at Ledreborg Palace near Copenhagen, in Portugal at the Amendoeira resort near Faro, and on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean at Elea Golf Club outside Paphos.

In the Republic of Ireland, Nick has played a large part in promoting the fortunes of Ballyliffin Golf Club in Donegal. Having flown in by helicopter to play the Old course in the early 1990s, he returned a few years further down the line to renovate the course with the installation of revetted bunkers. A hundred and thirty-five kilometres to the south, across the border in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, he set out the Faldo course at the Lough Erne resort in 2009.

Mention should also be made of two important colleagues that Nick has worked with for a number of years: Andrew Haggar, his Lead Architect on projects such as Roco Ki in the Dominican Republic, Ledreborg Palace in Denmark and Monte Rocha in Portugal and Gareth Williams, Director of Design, who has worked at the Elea Estate in Cyprus, Laguna Lang Co in Vietnam and Lough Erne in Northern Ireland.

Outstanding Faldo commissions include an 18-hole course for the Monte Rocha estate in Portugal, which has been on the books for some time now, a 27-hole development within Long An province in Vietnam, and the 18-hole Rumanza course for DHA Multan in the Punjab region of Pakistan, which will be constructed by Desert Group UAE and managed by Troon Golf.

Faldo married three times and has five children. In 1989, he was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year and he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1997. Nick was awarded the MBE in the 1988 New Year Honours before being made a Knight Batchelor in the 2009 Birthday Honours list. He’s forged a successful television career in the United States, becoming the lead golf analyst for CBS and the Golf Channel.

Established in 1996, The Faldo Series is the only global amateur tournament for junior boys and girls. It has grown from its European base, expanding into Asia in 2006, with thousands of participants competing every year at qualifying events which lead to the Grand Finals. In 2017, The Faldo Series went a step further, partnering the International Junior Golf Tour in the United States.

Like Ben Hogan before him, Sir Nick Faldo seeks perfection with such single-mindedness that winning – much like the follow-through of his flawless swing – is a by-product of a larger goal.

More than any player of his era, the Englishman has relentlessly pursued golf’s holy grail – total control of the golf ball. The swing he has built in that endless chase is one that has not only held up, but excelled in the game’s most important moments.

Between 1987 and 1995, Faldo won six major championships: three Opens and three Masters. Although he has a total of 39 tournament victories around the world, including six events on the PGA Tour, Faldo’s focus has always been on his performance in the Masters, U.S. Open, The Open and PGA Championship.

In one stretch between 1988 and 1993, Faldo was never out of the top 20 in a Grand Slam event.

Faldo had relied on dedication, consistency, tempo and one of the strongest competitive minds the game has ever seen. Although he is tall at just over 6’3” and athletically built with wide shoulders, Faldo has never been a particularly powerful player. Consistency, distance control and course management are his strengths. His record makes him arguably the finest player of his height or taller in the history of the game.

World Golf Hall of Fame – Class of 1998: “Between 1987 and 1995, Faldo won six major championship – three Opens and three Masters. Although he has many tournament victories around the world, including six events on the PGA TOUR, Faldo’s focus has always been on his performance in the Masters, U.S. Open, Open and PGA Championship. In one stretch between 1988 and 1993, Faldo was never out of the top 20 in a Grand Slam event.”

Nick Faldo

​Nick Faldo didn’t start playing golf until he reached the age of 14 and it’s said he only got into the game after watching Charles Coody win the 1971 Masters tournament on his family’s new colour TV set.

Donegal

Ireland

Ballyliffin is Ireland’s most northerly golf club, located off Tullagh Point on the Atlantic edge of the Inishowen Peninsula. The location is divine; the course hugs the shoreline overlooking the golden beach of Pollan Strand and Glashedy Rock (Ballyliffin’s equivalent of Turnberry’s Ailsa Craig).

It’s difficult to pin a date on the earliest origins of the game of golf at Ballyliffin, though it is clear that the Ballyliffin Golf Club was founded in 1947. The Old course originally started out in life as a very ordinary nine-hole course and the club progressed very slowly, often struggling financially. In the late 1960s, Martin Hopkins, a local agricultural advisor, identified a prime stretch of links land nearby, ideal for golf. Eddie Hackett, Charles Lawrie and Frank Pennink were engaged in shaping the new links course and in 1973, the brand new “Old” course opened for play.

The Old is a classic links, with fairways that pitch and roll through wild dunes. This is links golf at its most traditional, where the perfect drive will often find an awkward lie. If you are afflicted with a lack of balance, you will struggle, because you’ll rarely get a flat stance.

For about 20 years, the Old course remained well and truly outside of the limelight. Only those in the know, and Ballyliffin’s lucky members, knew the secret. Then, in June 1993, a helicopter dropped out of the blue sky and landed next to the clubhouse with the world number one on board. After a quick thrash around the Old course, Nick Faldo was spellbound, falling under Ballyliffin’s trance. “One of the most natural courses I have ever played,” he commented. And from that point onwards, Ballyliffin came of age.

Ballyliffin: Golf’s Great Twin Miracles 

, the author details changes that were made to the Old course when the Glashedy was built: “We did not make any changes to holes 1-6 but we created a new par-3 7th and a new par-4 8th to allow the old par-3 9th, which ran alongside the car park, to be eliminated. On the back-nine we had nothing to do with holes 10-12, 17 and 18. But we made a lot of improvements besides.

We created a glorious entirely new par-4 13th running up a valley that had been an unused flood plain. The old 13th [now the 14th] played from a tee near the now 12th tee on Glashedy links and we realigned the first half of the fairway onto higher ground. We regretted having to eliminate the old par-4 14th… we compensated by creating a smashing new 15th which is a downhill dog-leg right to a really exciting green. Our final input on the Old Links was an even more important one at hole 16 which was a problem hole at the time... the hole now has much more variety and many more playing options”.

Ironically, the renovation work that Pat Ruddy had originally been brought in for (before a decision was made to build a second course) was assigned to the Faldo Design team in 2004, when they added new revetted bunkers and new ‘Faldo’ tees, in addition to enlarging a couple of greens.

There are many memorable holes on the Old course, but the 190-yard par three 5th, called “The Tank”, will stick in the mind for a very long time. It’s an intimidating tee shot to an elevated plateau, almost stage-like green that is surrounded by dunes.

Ballyliffin’s new Glashedy course has recently upstaged the Old, but don’t make a trip to County Donegal without playing it. Both courses contrast and complement each other supremely well. But for the true links purist, the Old course is the one.

Ballyliffin (Old)

Narin & Portnoo

Britain & Ireland

The Old course at Ballyliffin Golf Club is a classic links, with fairways that pitch and roll through wild dunes. This is links golf at its most traditional, where the perfect drive will often find an awkward lie.