Dataw Island (Cotton Dike)

Tom Fazio was born in Norristown in the northwestern suburbs of Philadelphia and was educated at nearby Lansdale Catholic High School. He “entered the business of golf course architecture as a teenager in 1962,” wrote Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten in The Golf Course, “assisting his uncle George in course construction. His on-the-job training and experience gave him intimate knowledge in engineering, landscape design, soils, accounting and business. By the early Seventies he became a full partner with George and the partnership became one of the nation’s leading course design firms.”