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.

Kidd’s upbringing was modest, but his golfing indoctrination started at an early age while hanging around with course maintenance staff. He headed south to England for formal education, obtaining a HND in Horticulture at Writtle College near Chelmsford in Essex. He completed his apprenticeship with Southern Golf, a well-respected golf course construction company, whose extensive portfolio consists of builds from the drawing boards of 

David then joined the English firm, Swan Golf Designs, originally founded following collaboration between Sir Henry Cotton and Alex Swan. In 1991, Kidd returned to Scotland to work as Director of Design for Gleneagles Golf Developments (GGD), a role he retained until 1999. (GGD was set up by Gleneagles’ parent company, Guinness, to develop high-end golf resorts globally.)

In 1994, 27-year-old Kidd went to Oregon to survey a vast stretch of sandy coastline to the north of Bandon, Oregon. To his amazement, he was hired by Chicago billionaire Mike Keiser to design the first course at Bandon Dunes. “I’d never done anything of any note,” Kidd said. “I wasn’t a conventionally-trained architect in any regard. To this day, I’m still not entirely sure why Mike Keiser chose me… I scratch my head and thank my lucky stars.”

In 1996, Kidd moved to Oregon, three years later Bandon Dunes opened for play to a universal fanfare of bagpipes. The blue touch paper had just been lit and Kidd’s architectural career was on its way. Soon after Kidd founded DMK Golf Design with a “natural, seamless and sustainable” philosophy and a “hands-on” methodology.

Queenwood was DMK’s next course to open in 2001. Unfortunately this ultra-private course in Surrey, England, was launched without fanfare and remains inaccessible to most golfers. The West course at the inclusive Powerscourt, located in the foothills of Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains, opened in 2003, but it failed to capture any notable attention. Nanea in Hawaii also opened in 2003, yet the most exclusive club in the state of Hawaii did little to help with DMK’s marketing.

’s Montagu course at Fancourt in South Africa, which remains eclipsed by the Black Knight’s Links course at the same property. TPC Stonebrae in California opened quietly in 2007, but things changed the following year when Kidd was handed the responsibility to fashion the seventh course at The Home of Golf. The Castle course at St Andrews remains the most controversial design in Kidd’s burgeoning portfolio – the greensites are Marmite – loved and hated in equal measure.

By now, Kidd was based in Oregon where he was building Tetherow, named “Best New Course of the Year” by Golf Magazine. In a similar vein to the Castle course, Tetherow is lambasted for its wild greens. So, in 2009, Kidd and a couple of colleagues returned to Bandon Dunes to learn, in detail, what made this course so admired.

Kidd learned that harder isn’t better. Bandon Dunes is fun and playable whereas Tetherow and the Castle course are arguably not. Armed with a rediscovered approach, DMK built Gamble Sands in Brewster, Washington. Ron Whitten writing in Golf Digest commented: “This isn’t Golf for Dummies, it’s Golf for Ordinary Golfers, for those who play expecting pleasure, not penance.” Mike Keiser’s target audience is the “retail golfer” and he was so impressed with Gamble Sands that he commissioned Kidd to fashion a second course at Sand Valley. Mammoth Dunes (and Gamble Sands) has propelled the Scotsman back to the architectural forefront.

Austrian Red Bull billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz bought the Fijian 3,500-acre Laucala Island in 2003 and you can rent it for $170,000 a night with a minimum stay of five nights. Golf is inclusive.

Comporta Dunes in Portugal was due to open in 2015, but this promising course has not yet opened.

Beaverbrook, a Tom Watson co-design, opened in 2016 but it’s reserved for wealthy members only in the Queenwood mould.

How Scotsman David McLay Kidd and His Ragtag Band Built the First New Course on Golf's Holy Soil in Nearly a Century

Dream Golf – The Making of Bandon Dunes

The Castle course at St Andrews remains the most controversial design in David McLay Kidd’s burgeoning portfolio. Kidd later learned that harder isn’t better. Bandon Dunes is fun and playable whereas the Castle course is arguably not. Armed with a rediscovered approach, DMK built Gamble Sands in Brewster, Washington, to critical acclaim.

David McLay Kidd

David McLay Kidd's father was a greenkeeper at Glasgow Golf Club. As a child he’d listen to his father’s golf ramblings while as a teenager he’d earn pocket money raking bunkers for his dad.

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.”

When Player was fourteen, his father bought him a set of golf clubs, which he immediately put to good use at Virginia Park golf course (now called South Downs Country Club), located on the edge of the Klipriviersberg Municipal Nature Reserve, south of downtown Johannesburg.

According to folklore, during his first game at Virginia Park, Player parred the first three holes, and two years later aged sixteen, he declared that he would become the best golfer in the world.

“Gary Player turned professional in 1953 and won scores of tournaments throughout the world,” wrote Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten in 

. “One of only four men [now five including Tiger Woods] to complete golf’s Grand Slam, he won three British Opens, three Masters, two PGA Championships and one U.S. Open. With 

, Player was considered one of golf’s Big Three in the 1960s.

Although he was always first and foremost a competitive golfer, Player served as a golf design consultant for over half a dozen different golf architects. At the height of his playing career, Player planned several courses in South Africa and Zimbabwe in collaboration with professional golfer Sid Brews and Dr. Van Vincent. In the early 1970s he was associated with American designers 

 and Arthur Davis. When Davis left the partnership, Player then teamed up with Ron Kirby and Denis Griffiths.

In 1987 Player teamed for a time with Karl Litten, a former associate of 

 and Bruce Devlin. That relationship lasted two years. Player then formed his own design firm, Gary Player Design Co., headquartered in southern Florida. But Player competed full-time on the Senior PGA Tour and assigned the day-to-day architectural duties to Jeff Myers, a former Litten associate, and Joseph Duco III.”

Since the mid-1990s a good number of golf course architects have passed through the doors of Gary Player Design. Today the company has two senior designers on its books, Jeff Lawrence and Steven McFarlane. McFarlane is responsible for “Signature Design” with Player in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Central America.

“The design of a golf course is a far more sophisticated process than many people would ever imagine, as it requires not only an understanding of the game, but a great deal of vision and clever planning,” says Player. “To a large extent the topography of the land one works with will determine how the golf course is to be laid out, and in this regard it is always my objective to work as much as possible with the natural topography, environment and features of the site.

As a course designer, one of my prime concerns is always to create beauty and harmony and a playable golf course, whilst respecting a developer’s objectives… There is no doubt that designing golf courses is an area of business that gives me significant pleasure and reward. There are various reasons for this; however, perhaps the most important is the fact that I feel we are putting something back into nature by designing and building golf courses. There is a natural reward in being able to play a course once it is built, but that is far outweighed by the satisfaction experienced when I see other people deriving enjoyment from something we’ve helped create. I get a great kick out of knowing that hundreds of years after people have long forgotten me, the courses with which we have been involved will continue to give people tremendous pleasure!”

Undeniably the Black Knight and his design team have left a lasting legacy from Thracian Cliffs on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast to Elephant Hills in Zimbabwe. Player’s finest design is almost always considered to be The Links at Fancourt. The Links is perhaps unlucky not to be listed in our World Top 100, but it was prominently featured in the book, 

, where Player listed 55 of his personal favourite courses. Listed under the “Links-Like Courses” chapter, which also included Shinnecock Hills and Seminole, Gary Player’s view of his creation at George in South Africa is as follows:

“I feel this is one of the very best golf courses in the world, even though it may have been built on the worst piece of ground – clay as flat as an airport. I’m proud to have worked as the course designer and could not be happier with how it turned out. It has been designed to make golfers feel as though they were at Ballybunion, Dornoch, or St Andrews with rolling fairways, pot bunkers, big greens, high rough, and a seascape appearance.”

World Golf Hall of Fame (Class of 1974) – Fact

: “Gary Player has been dubbed the Black Knight, Mr. Fitness and the World’s Most Traveled Athlete™.”

: “Player is indisputably the greatest international golfer of all time. He estimates he has spent more than three years of his life in airplanes and traveled some 28 million air kilometers. In every year from 1955 to 1982, Player won at least one sanctioned international tournament, a 27-year streak. He won the World Match Play title five times, the Australian Open seven times and the South African Open 13 times. In winning the 1974 Brazilian Open, he shot the only 59 ever in a national open. In 2016 in golf’s return to the Olympic Games, he captained the South African team, and is the country’s Sportsman of the Century. Player is a father to six children, grandfather of 22 and great grandfather of one.”

“Golf, because it is the one game played over natural train in all kinds of conditions, is perhaps the most difficult of all sports for the traveling competitor to play well. Granting that a South African has to spend a greater portion of his time overseas than golfers who come from countries with a bigger and richer tournament schedule, and which offer lusher subsidiary benefits, the fact that Gary Player has been able to win (and win the significant tournaments) in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia stamps him as one of the genuinely great athletes of our age.

Player’s accomplishments loom all the more impressive when one reflects that he is a relatively small man- he stands a little over five-seven and weighs about 160 pounds – competing against much bigger men in an era of out-and-out power golf. Nevertheless, it is only the super-long hitters who crack the ball a good distance past Player. He is exceedingly strong, having realized many years ago that he would have to compensate for his size by building up his body. He has since devoted large periods of each day to lifting weights, or doing hundreds of pushups, or running in place for hundreds of strides, or executing whatever exercise he was dedicated to that particular season.

Whether he is at his country farm outside Johannesburg or at his ranch at Magoembas Kloof in the beautiful rolling country 250 miles north of Johannesburg, he loves to take on hand physical chores, such as mending gates and fences, repairing roads, rebuilding barns and other shelters. His unrelenting search for sinew and stamina has also made him a health food devotee. His passions and discoveries run their courses. At one period he was sure that the master key to fitness was a regular intake of honey, but at other times he has been equally sold on the merits of wheat germ, fruits, raisins, nuts, black bread, and bananas.”


“The harder you practice, the luckier you get.” Gary Player

When speaking of Gary Player, it’s common for observers to say something along the lines of: “He’s done more with less than any golfer I’ve ever seen.”  World Golf Hall of Fame - Class of 1974. “The harder you practice, the luckier you get.” Gary Player

Gary Player

The Black Knight’s playing record is exceptional, he’s one of only five men to win golf’s career Grand Slam, and since the early 1980s Gary Player Design has also been rather successful.

Western Cape

South Africa

German entrepreneur Hasso Plattner – co-founder of computer software giant SAP – is the leisure time yachtsman and golfer whose vast financial resources were used to update the golfing complex at Fancourt in 1994.

Located between the Outeniqua Mountains to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south, all three of Fancourt’s fabulous courses are accessible to Hotel residents and Country Club members with their guests.

The 18-hole Montagu parkland layout is the original course at Fancourt (from an initial 27-hole design), which was upgraded in 2005 by David McLay Kidd when new 1st and 9th holes were introduced. Bunkers and greens were redefined at all the other holes, some water features were removed and other new ones brought into play (such as the dam that was built after the course was constructed).

Like the other Fancourt courses, the Montagu is maintained to a very high standard and its trees and water features add interest and variety to the undulating landscape. The Links at Fancourt may get most of the plaudits these days but the Montagu is still a great course, fully deserving its consistently high ranking position in South African course listings.

Fancourt Montagu closed for an upgrade from April to September 2018, according to Stuart McLean, former editor of Golf Digest South Africa. The Montagu greens were resurfaced with bent grass during this period of time and the club was planning design changes with input from Gary Player whilst the course was shut.

Alterations to the Montagu were intended to make the course more intimidating, with water features prominent. But other changes will improve playability for the average golfer, and therefore create a more enjoyable experience. The bunkering on the front nine was reduced and fairway landing areas increased in size, with fewer forced carries.

These improvements come on top of other recent modifications made to the Montagu and 

 courses in an attempt to return both layouts to the traditional look and feel of parkland courses. Water features were opened and cleaned out to become more visible and Cape Country flower beds added. Fairway definition has also been improved, with intrusive bushes removed.

Fancourt (Montagu)

Pinnacle Point

Africa

The 18-hole Montagu parkland layout is the original course at Fancourt (from an initial 27-hole design), which was upgraded in 2005 when new 1st and 9th holes were introduced.