Peter Thomson was the first of four sons born to Arthur Thomson, a signwriter, and Grace Watson, a dressmaker, in the working class suburb of Brunswick, and he learned to play golf as a junior on the 9-hole Royal Park layout across the road from where the family lived.

The course played firm and fast, especially in the hot summers, and Peter developed golfing techniques here that would stand him in good stead later in his professional career on the famous links courses of the British Isles.

At 16 years of age, he became a member at Victoria Golf Club, allowing him to further refine his playing skills.

Thomson achieved a diploma in applied chemistry at Footscray Technical School in Melbourne in 1945 then worked as a rubber technologist for Spalding in Melbourne, designing and producing golf balls, which he tested himself.

In 1949, having won several amateur titles, he decided to turn professional.

Peter’s first professional victory arrived the following year, when he won the 34th edition of the New Zealand Open in Christchurch. Over the following four decades, he secured more than eighty professional tournament victories around the world, with most of them occurring on the Australasian and European tours.

His last professional win came on the European Seniors Tour at North Berwick in 1988, when he prevailed in the PGA Seniors Championship by two stokes from Denis Hutchinson. He’s best remembered, of course, for winning the Open five times between 1954 and 1965 and he also represented Australia at eleven World Cups, winning the 2-man team event twice.

Thomson was president of the Australian PGA from 1962 to 1994. In 1979 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his service to golf and in 2001 became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his contributions as a player and administrator and for community service.

In 1982 he was elected an honorary member of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, where he played an active role. Six years later, he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. He also had a successful career as a golf journalist, contributing to the 

In the mid-1960s, he founded South Pacific Golf, along with 

 and Michael Wolveridge. Over the next half century, he and his various business partners, including 

 and Tim Lobb, were involved in more than a hundred golf course projects around the world.

Most of their output centred on the Australasian market, but they also expanded their reach into southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and India.

From the World Golf Hall of Fame: “Peter Thomson was the thinking man’s golfer. His clean, brisk game was based on cold logic and a gift for reducing things to their simplest essentials. His style was free of the extraneous, so that the path he would take to victory seemed a remarkably straight line.

Between 1954 and 1965, the Australian won the British Open five times. He and Young Tom Morris were among only four men to win it three times consecutively. He won 26 times in Europe, 19 times in Australia and New Zealand and 11 more times in Asia and Japan. He played only a few seasons in America, garnering one victory in the U.S., the 1956 Texas Open, where he closed with a 63 and defeated Cary Middlecoff and Gene Littler in a playoff.

Thomson was best on fast-running courses where judging the bounce and run of the ball was more important than long hitting. Mostly for that reason, he did not excel when playing on the well-watered and longer courses in the United States. Other than his victory in Texas, Thomson’s best showing in a U.S. event was a fourth place in the 1956 U.S. Open and a fifth in the 1957 Masters. He never played in the PGA Championship.

Thomson was gifted with a true affinity for being in the thick of the tense closing moments of a championship. ‘That was the real thrill of it for me,’ he said in his biography. ‘I’ve seen a lot of people find themselves in that situation and I suspect that very few of them like it, but I really enjoyed it.’

By temperament and design, Thomson indeed seemed pressure-proof. His grip was light, his manner at address brisk and his motion through the ball graceful and devoid of much physical effort. He was a reliable and occasionally brilliant putter. ‘There were no frills,’ said von Nida, ‘so virtually nothing could go wrong.’

Above all, Thomson had a head for the game. ‘The most important facets of golf are careful planning, calm and clear thinking and the ordinary logic of common sense,’ he once wrote. It was the same cool detachment with which he separated his competitive self from the rest of his life.

He was truly a balanced man in a world that usually requires obsessive and narrow dedication. Thomson enjoyed reading, the opera and painting. He ran for elected office in Australia in 1982, narrowly losing. After his competitive rounds, when he was abroad, he often wrote cogent dispatches and columns for the Melbourne Herald.

Later in his career, he designed golf courses, especially in Asia, where he was also instrumental in establishing professional tours. His diverse interests were a big reason why he chose not to uproot himself for America like other Australian golfers.”

 obituary: Thomson was always reluctant to compare his wins with anyone else’s. “All records are qualified in that they were made at a certain time in history,” Thomson told golf historian Brendan Moloney for a story on his 80th birthday.

“The circumstances change so much, and so do the players’ attitudes. In golf, only in the last 30 years or so has there been a professional attitude to playing for money. The professionals in the USA and Britain and anywhere else all had club jobs as a backstop to their income. When they did play and make records, you have to understand that they were taking time off from the pro shop,” he said. “So the records that were set were pretty remarkable.”

Thomson always had stories to tell, and told them well. With a full head of hair and a lineless face that belied his age, the Australian wasn’t afraid to let everyone know his feelings on any subject.

That was true as far back as 1966. As president of the Australian PGA, Thomson was indignant that Arnold Palmer’s prize for winning the Australian Open was only $1,600, out of a total purse of $6,000, one of the smallest in golf.

“Golf Stars Play for Peanuts,” blared the headline of a story he wrote. “Never before has such a field of top golfers played for what $6,000 is worth today. Canada offers 19 times that. I know 19 other countries who give more.”

But he was always happy on the golf course.

“I’ve had a very joyful life, playing a game that I loved to play for the sheer pleasure of it,” Thomson said. “I don’t think I did a real day’s work in the whole of my life.”

Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, on hearing of Peter Thomson’s passing, “Peter was a true gentleman and will be forever remembered throughout the world of golf as one of the great champions of our wonderful sport. He was a distinguished Honorary Member of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and will be sorely missed by all of us at The R&A.”

Peter Thomson

Peter Thomson worked for Spalding in Melbourne designing golf balls, which he tested himself, before going on to become the only golfer in the 20th century to lift the Claret Jug three times in succession.

Michael Wolveridge

 commenced his career in golf course design when he joined up with 

 and Michael Wolveridge. Initially the firm was called South Pacific Golf Pty Ltd but soon became Harris Thomson and Wolveridge.

Early projects included Wairakei in New Zealand, Royal Hong Kong GC, Bali Handara in Indonesia and the renovation of both Delhi and Royal Calcutta in India. In the 1960s and 1970s Thomson was pioneering the Asian Tour by playing across the Asia Pacific, which helped the company prosper.

Wolveridge set up the Melbourne office whilst Harris concentrated on the European market from London. In 1981, Wolveridge met a young architect named Ross Perrett who was completing a Masters thesis on Golf Architecture at Melbourne University but six years passed before Ross started consulting for Thomson Wolveridge.

After a hectic few years servicing the Asian Golf Boom, Perrett was invited to join the business so in 1990 the company changed to Thomson Wolveridge and Perrett. When Mike Wolveridge eventually retired in 2004, the company became Thomson Perrett.

The following year, Melbourne-born architect Tim Lobb joined the firm to service the European, Middle East and African markets so the company was renamed Thomson Perrett and Lobb. When Peter Thomson retired in 2016, Tim formed Lobb + Partners, with Ross looking after TP Golf.

Karrie Webb joined Ross in a new design partnership at the end of 2018, with the establishment of Perrett Webb Pty Ltd. Having worked together on a bid for the 2016 Rio Olympics, it felt right to team up again and so the combination of seasoned architect and one of Australia's greatest players is now set to lead the way forward, starting with the company's first appointment at Indooroopilly Golf Club.


Career highlights for Perrett include designing and building the Duke’s in St Andrews; completing the Mt Merapi course in Indonesia on the world’s most active volcano; designing The Capital in Melbourne and Ayodhya Links in Bangkok; as well as creating more than twenty courses in China on all types of sites including abandoned fish farms, rubbish tips and reclaimed coastal sites.

New millennium projects of note include The National Moonah Links, Sandhurst and Hamilton Island, which is the first course to ever be built within a World Heritage Marine Park.

Ross Perrett joined the prolific Thomson & Wolveridge design team in the 1980s, becoming a partner a few years later and then company principal with Peter Thomson when Mike Wolveridge left the firm. There was a period in the 1980s and 90s when this company seemed to win every major design contract in Australia. With little genuine competition and a marketable ‘signature’ the firm prospered, and it wasn’t really until the arrival of Greg Norman Golf Course Design and the team at Michael Clayton Design that Australian business started to slow for Thomson and Perrett. planetgolf.com

Golf Courses of the Mornington Peninsula 

by Ross Perrett, Paul Daley and Kimbal Baker (2005)

Ross Perrett joined the prolific Thomson & Wolveridge design team in the 1980s, becoming a partner a few years later and then company principal with Peter Thomson when Mike Wolveridge left the firm. There was a period in the 1980s and 90s when this company seemed to win every major design contract in Australia. planetgolf.com

Ross Perrett

Career highlights for Perrett include the Duke’s in St Andrews, completing the Merapi course in Indonesia on the world’s most active volcano, The Capital in Melbourne and Ayodhya Links in Bangkok.

Java

Indonesia

Set in an expansive property in the foothills of the East Java mountains on the lower slopes of three volcanoes, some still in various stages of life, Finna Golf & Country Club provides a unique golfing experience.

Designed in the mid-1990s by the Thomson, Wolveridge and Perrett partnership, the layout makes full use of elevation changes, winding its way around the vast estate.

Thrilling high tees play over former rice paddies in this tranquil, tropical paradise, which is located less than a two-hour drive south from Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya.

 located close to Finna, golfers visiting East Java are well rewarded for journeying off the beaten tourist path, which tends to centre on Bali and Jakarta.


Finna

Taman Dayu

Asia

Set in the foothills of the East Java mountains, Finna Golf & Country Club is a mid-1990s Thomson, Wolveridge and Perrett creation where elevated tees play over former rice paddies in a tranquil, tropical paradise.